It is Winter again, a cold December afternoon, and Ned Crane has just "happened in," as he very often does now, to have a chat with Zoe, and to hear over and over again about her lovely visit abroad with Sir Barry and Dolores. Mr. Vacine is very anxious that Ned will marry Zoe, but like her sister, the youngest Miss Litchfield, is very refractory. She is really very fond indeed of gay, good-hearted, adoring Ned. But it is far from her to give him the satisfaction of knowing. She knows Ned intends asking her to marry him, and, perhaps, after a good many years from now, he will. Ned stops and talks so long that at last the pretty white and gold clock strikes five, and they hear Mrs. Litchfield and Aunt Adeline preparing tea in the dining hall.
"Say Zoe, when are you going to say 'yes' to what I asked you the other day?" Ned says, as he pokes the fire in the brightly-polished grate.
"Nonsense," Miss Litchfield answers, crossly. She heartily wishes Ned would not allude to that "other day," when he had stirred up her feelings so remorselessly. She smiles grimly and clinks her knitting needles together viciously. She even goes so far as to give "Duff," the unoffending kitten, an angry poke with her toe.
"Won't you tell me when, dear?" Ned urges, tenderly. And Zoe throws the crimson and white smoking cap she is making on the sofa.
"I must go and see if the supper is nearly ready," she says, standing by Ned's side, in the red glow of the flickering firelight.
Ned takes the pretty hand hanging by her side. "Say, Zoe, when will you marry me?"
With a clear, mocking laugh she twists her hand away. And the tantalizing words he has heard so often ring through the pretty cosy, fire-lit room, echoing wilful Zoe's words, as she floats out the door toward the dining hall, for she is most unromantically hungry for her tea. The answer to Ned's earnest question was one of Zoe's clear, sweet ripples of gay laughter, and the mocking words, "Some Day."