“Who may marry?” said Marion astonished.
“The only people whom I know who really suit each other,” said Eddy calmly. “You and I.”
“You and—me,” cried Marion in great wrath. “You are just very impudent to say so. Me marry you!—without ever being asked—without a word! In three years or so! I just tell you I will do nothing of the kind.”
“That is exactly what I said. I said, if you think Marion will wait three years for me! She will take the first Duke that offers, and she will be one of the ornaments of Queen Victoria’s court long before I come home.”
“I was not saying exactly that,” said Marion. “Where am I to get the Duke? There are none but old bald-headed men.”
“An Earl then,” said Eddy. “There are always lively young Earls or Viscounts in hand, more to be counted on than plain Eddy Saumarez, who is nobody. That’s what I said to your father, Miss May. Why should you wait for me? I told him I saw no reason.”
“Especially when I was never asked,” Marion said.
“Yes,” said Eddy. “You see how good I am at bottom, after all that has happened. I said I would play you a nasty trick if I could find one, but I haven’t. You should be grateful to me. I haven’t asked you—so far as words go.”
“I don’t know,” said Marion with a little quiver in her lip, “how a person can be asked except in words.”
“Don’t you?” he said, and then they gave each other a look, and burst into mutual laughter, of the emotional kind.