Gwen patted her waistband where it bulged ever so slightly with her handkerchief. "Womanly!" she repeated in a doubtful voice.
"He'll fall in love with her to-day and propose to-morrow. Do him a world of good," said Boreham.
"Propose!" Gwen caught her breath. "But he couldn't—she couldn't—he couldn't—marry!"
"Couldn't marry—I didn't say marry—I said he will propose to-morrow." Boreham laughed a little in his beard.
"I don't understand," stammered the girl. "You mean—she would refuse?"
"No," said Boreham. "It mightn't go as far as that—the whole thing is a matter of words—words—words. It's a part of a man's education to fall in love with Mrs. Dashwood!"
Gwen blinked at him. A piercing thought struck her brain. Spoken words—they didn't count! Words alone didn't clinch the bargain! Words didn't tie a man up to his promise. Was this the "law"? She must get at the actual "law" of the matter. She knew something about love-making, but nothing about the "law."
"Do you mean," she said, and she scarcely recognised her own voice, so great was her concentration of thought and so slowly did she pronounce the enigmatic words, "if he had kissed you as well, he would be obliged to marry one?"
Boreham knitted his brows. "If I was, at this moment to kiss you, my dear lady," he began, "I should not be compelled to marry you. Even the gross injustice meted out to us men by the laws (backed up by Mrs. Grundy) dares not go as far as that. But there is no knowing what new oppression is in store for us—in the future."
"I only mean," stammered Gwen, "if he had already said—something."