To Blaise and Jean it might have been an hour—a commonplace period ticked off by the little silver clock upon the chimneypiece—or half eternity before they came back to the recollection of things mundane. When they did, it was across the kindly bridge of humour.
Blaise laughed out suddenly and boyishly.
“It’s preposterous!” he exclaimed. “I quite forgot to propose.”
“So you did! Suppose”—smiling up at him impertinently—“suppose you do it now?”
“Not I! I won’t waste my breath when I might put it to so much better use in calling you belovedest.”
Jean was silent, but her eyes answered him. She had made room for him beside her, and now he was seated upon the edge of the Chesterfield, holding her in his arms. She did not want to talk much. That still, serene happiness which lies deep within the heart is not provocative of garrulity.
At last a question—the question that had tormented her through all the long months since she had first realised whither love was leading her, found its way to her lips.
“Why didn’t you tell me before, Blaise?”
His face clouded.
“Because of all that had happened in the past. You know—you have been told about Nesta——”