Ferlie, too, waited for something these days, but nobody realized that it was the mail. Doubtful whether she realized it herself until that inevitable event from which, in looking back afterwards, she dated her "growing up."
Champagne-cup, mingled with the strains of "Wyoming" in a softly-lit private ball-room, made up Clifford's vacillating mind for him; the touch of his hands upon her thinly silk-and-chiffon-covered knees made up Ferlie's for her. There was no mistaking the passionate warmth of her refusal. Till this moment her swift glimpses of "Society," overshadowed as they were by anxiety for the future, had affected her only as part of a drugging dream. Now she awakened to the direction in which she was drifting.
"But you don't understand," said Clifford, too amazed for coherent thought, "I meant to ask you to marry me!"
"I know you did," admitted Ferlie gravely; "no one has ever asked me such a thing before, but I knew at once what you meant. And if you are disappointed I am very sorry that I don't want to."
She had a feeling that the rejection of one's first marriage proposal should be couched in more elegant diction, but, really, there seemed nothing more to say than just that. Marriage meant living with a person for always. She was quite certain that she did not wish to live with Lord Clifford Greville-Mainwaring for always. She enjoyed dancing with him but, when you came to think of it, dancing played an extraordinarily small part in one's existence. She was puzzled because Clifford did not seem to understand her point of view at all, and she wished he would sit further off. They were returning home in the Crossley, with Briggs driving. Later, Peter, descending the turn of the staircase, overheard Clifford's parting words.
"My dear girl, you don't know me yet! I shall go on coming until I get a different answer. That's the sort of man I am."
Ferlie decided it would be hopeless to explain the sort of woman she was, and wondered how often she could contrive to be absent when Clifford called in this optimistic fashion throughout the week. She was, somehow, inclined to surmise that his resolution would not survive a week's rebuffs and she wondered why she had not noticed before that he used some sort of scent on his hair. Meanwhile,
"That chap and Ferlie," said Peter, having faded away unnoticed to his mother's sitting-room, "are brazenly approaching matrimony to-night under the umbrella-stand. From what I could gather Ferlie seems to consider it an over-rated institution."
Mrs. Carmichael's embroidery dropped on her lap.
"You do not mean to say she is refusing him, Peter? When Lady Cardew and I have worked so hard."