They talked over the problem of his people and her people after they had won back to a certain degree of sense, and Dick told Joan of how Mabel had wished him luck just as he started out.
"You are going to be great friends," he said, "and Mother will come round too, she always does."
"I am less afraid of your Mother than I am of Mabel," Joan confessed. "I don't believe Mabel will ever like me."
Dick stayed to lunch and waited on afterwards to see Colonel Rutherford. He had extracted a promise from Joan to marry him on Saturday by special licence. He would have to go up to town to see about it himself the next day; he wanted to leave everything arranged and settled for her first. He and Joan walked down to the woods after lunch, and Joan tried to tell him of her first year in London, and of some of the motives that had driven her. He listened in silence; he was conscious more of jealousy than anything else; he was glad when she passed on to talk of her later struggles in London; of Shamrock House, of Rose Brent and Fanny.
"And that man I met at your place," he asked. "You did not even think you loved him, did you, Joan?"
"No," she answered quickly, "never, Dick, and he had never been to my room before. He just pretended he had been to annoy you because I suppose he saw it would hurt me."
Colonel Rutherford arrived for tea very tired, but jubilant at the success of the meeting, which had brought in a hundred recruits. He did not remember anything about Dick, but was delighted to see him because he was in uniform. The news of the other's early departure to the front filled Colonel Rutherford with envy.
"What wouldn't I give to be your age, young man," he grunted.
Joan slipped away and left them after tea, and it was then that Dick broached the subject of their marriage.
"I have loved her for two years," he said simply, "and I have persuaded her to marry me before I leave on Saturday. There is no reason why I should not marry, and if I die she will get my small amount of money, and a pension."