"She hasn't said a word yet. I've done nothing but talk and she's done nothing but listen. It knocked me galley west, too. But it happened before I realised it. She was playing on the piano, and suddenly I knew that I wanted to marry her. And I said 'You darling!' And she grew white and began to cry."
"Did you ask her to marry you?"
"About a thousand times."
"Didn't she say anything?"
"Not a word."
"That's odd," said Desboro, troubled.
A few minutes later the clock struck.
"Come on, anyway," he said, "we've scarcely time to dress."
In his room later, tying his tie, Cairns' uncertainty clouded his own happiness a little; and when he emerged to wait in the sitting-room for Jacqueline, he was still worrying over it.