“I don’t know.”
“Why don’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let’s play something else. You be funny—or something—or shall we just have tea?”
Mr. Pease thought, just have tea. It was so much easier than being funny.
Meanwhile Mr. Watkins thought he had proposed to Diana and was in an agony of mind not knowing whether she knew it or not. If she did not know it, he thought he would leave things alone. But if she knew he had proposed, he would be equally willing to let things stand. Glad to let them! But he had been rushed, as it were, into a declaration. The perfidy of Pease had upset him; the prettiness of Diana had distracted him. And yet he had always vowed that nothing should ever induce him to marry a pretty woman. True beauty must be strange: must not be admired of the people—or understood by the crowd. He would rather be one of those who admired “the other sister far more.” It showed discrimination: argued a critical faculty. Diana was too obviously pretty. He didn’t suppose any one had ever argued the point. Therefore she did not come up to what he had set as his standard. But still, if he had proposed—he was quite glad—quite. It was possible he had been so subtle, disguised his meaning so cleverly that Diana had not seen whither he was drifting. Mr. Watkins decided to go by the size of the tea she was able to eat.
Diana was able to eat quite a good tea. The colour in her cheeks neither deepened nor paled, and she forgot whether Mr. Watkins liked sugar or not in his tea. So he decided he had carried subtlety too far. Or perhaps it had served him well. He would be better able to judge of that later on. To-morrow morning! After proposing he had always heard it was the next morning that tells.
Night had come. Shan’t had been asleep for hours. Diana was asleep. Only Aunt Elsie was awake—and she asked of herself this question—“Is she in love and has she told him?”