‘I shouldn’t wonder if we came to a bad end, like the babes in the wood,’ protested Celia. ‘Imagine us existing on unripe blackberries for a week or so, and then lying resignedly down to die. I don’t believe a bit in the birds putting leaves over us. That’s a fable invented for the pantomime. Birds are a great deal too selfish. No one who had ever seen a pair of robins fight for a bit of bread would believe in those benevolent birds who buried the babes in the wood.’
Being occasionally lost on the moor gave Celia and Mr. Gerard great opportunities for conversation. They were obliged to find something to talk about; and in the end naturally told each other their inmost thoughts. And so it came about, in the most natural way in the world, that one blazing noontide Celia found herself standing before a Druidic table, gazing idly at the big gray stones half embedded in heather and bracken, with George Gerard’s arm round her waist, and with her head placidly resting against his shoulder.
He had been asking her if she would wait for him. That was all. He had not asked her if she loved him, having made up his own mind upon that question, unassisted.
‘Darling, will you wait for me?’ he asked, looking down at her, with eyes brimming over with love.
‘Yes, George,’ she answered, meekly, quite a transformed Celia, all her pertness and flippancy gone.
‘It may be a long while, dear,’ he said gravely; ‘almost as long as Rachel waited for Jacob.’
‘I don’t mind that, provided there is no Leah to come between us.’
‘There shall be no Leah.’
So they were engaged, and in the dim cloudland of the future, Celia saw a vision of Harley Street, a landau, and a pair of handsome grays.
‘Doctors generally have grays, don’t they, George?’ she asked, presently, apropos to nothing particular.