He came on towards her and took both her hands.
"Mary," he said, "can you leave all this? Can you face it? Will you come with me and help me to build bridges and make roads and dig drains. . . . Will you come so that we can have the rest of our lives . . . together?"
They looked straight into one another's eyes.
"I will," said Mary, and she said it as solemnly as if she were repeating a response in the Marriage Service.
Reggie loosed one of her hands. Again he polished his face.
"I should like awfully to kiss you," he said, "but I'm so fearfully dusty—do you mind?"
"I think," said Mary, with a queer choky laugh, "that I'd rather like it."
And just at that moment Willets appeared at a gate leading from the garden. He didn't see them, and opened the gate, which squeaked abominably, came through and let it shut with a clang, but they, apparently, heard nothing.
Willets stood transfixed, for he saw the motor-bike and the dusty young man in overalls, and clasped close in the arms of the said dusty young man was Miss Mary!
Willets gave one quick glance, smote his hands softly together, and turned right round with his back to them. He leaned on the gate and gazed steadfastly into the distant garden. It was a squeaky gate, that gate. If he opened it, it might disturb them, and bless you, they were but young, and one is only young once.