"I got my orders in the nick of time. We are to go to Key West. I am to join the others on the way down."
"How soon?"
He sat at the other end of the davenport. "In three days, and anything can happen in three days."
He moved closer. She had a sense of panic. Was he going to propose to her again, in this room which she had set aside so sacredly for Derry Drake?
"Won't you have some tea?" she asked, desperately. "I'll have Julia bring it in."
"I'd rather talk."
But she had it brought, and Julia, wheeling in the tea-cart, offered a moment's reprieve. And Ralph ate the Lady-bread-and-butter, and the little pound cakes with the nuts and white frosting which had been meant for Derry, and then he walked around the tea-cart and took her hand, and for the seventh time since he had met her he asked her to marry him.
"But I don't love you." She was almost in tears.
"You don't know what love is—I'll teach you."
"I don't want to be taught."