"Oh, there wasn't any hurry. It's only three weeks. That isn't very long."
"That depends. Three weeks with him might be a very long time indeed."
"Oh, but if that happened again you'd have told me," she had said, with the same off-handedness.
"I might not have done so. You left it entirely to me."
"Well, no news is usually good news. And I wasn't wasting my time. I did get a proposal."
"About that. And forgive me, because I don't mean it rudely. But is that a joke?"
"Not a bit of a joke. He did want to marry me. So you see that's Derry's too."
"What is?"
"That is. The more—let's say desirable I am, if I don't scandalise you, the more I have for him. And anyhow I'm here now."
"Did you ask Madge to ask you?"