He said: “I don’t know. I’ve never thought of it. Just whenever you like.”
“All right,” she returned calmly. “Let it be a year hence. Meanwhile, we can be engaged. It’ll please the dear old birds. I know all the tabbies in the town have been mewing about us. Now they can mew about somebody else.”
“That’s awfully good of you, Peggy,” said Marmaduke. “I’ll go up to town to-morrow and get you the jolliest ring you ever saw.”
She sketched him a curtsy. “That’s one thing, at any rate, I can trust you in—your taste in jewellery.”
He moved nearer to her. “I suppose you know, Peggy dear, I’ve been awfully fond of you for quite a long time.”
“The feeling is more or less reciprocated,” she replied lightly. Then, “You can kiss me if you like. I assure you it’s quite usual.”
He kissed her somewhat shyly on the lips.
She whispered: “I do think I care for you, old thing.” Marmaduke replied sententiously: “You have made me a very happy man.” Then they sat down side by side on the sofa, and for all Peggy’s mocking audacity, they could find nothing in particular to say to each other.
“Let us play patience,” she said at last.
And when Mrs. Conover appeared awhile later, she found them poring over the cards in a state of unruffled calm. Peggy looked up, smiled, and nodded.