Sylvia saw the lovely, slender neck grow crimson. She turned the girl around with a sudden twist at the shoulders, and saw the face flushing sweetly under its mist of hair. She saw the pouting lips and the downcast eyes.
“Why don't you look at me?” she said, in a hard whisper.
Rose remained motionless.
“Look at me.”
Rose raised her eyelids, gave one glance at Sylvia, then she dropped them again. She was all one soft, rosy flush. She smiled a smile which she could not control—a smile of ecstasy.
Sylvia turned deadly pale. She gasped, and held the girl from her, looking at her pitilessly. “You don't mean it?” she exclaimed.
Then Rose spoke with a sudden burst of emotion. “Oh, Aunt Sylvia,” she said, “I thought I wouldn't tell you to-night. I made him promise not to tell to-night, because I was afraid you wouldn't like it, but I've got to. I don't feel right to go to bed and not let you know.”
“Then it's so?”
Rose gave her a glance of ineffable happiness and appeal for sympathy.
“You and him are planning to get married?”