Elspeth begged Tommy to listen to the beautiful things Grizel was saying about David, but, truth to tell, Grizel scarcely heard them herself.  She had given Tommy a shy, rapturous glance.  She was wondering when he would begin.  What a delicious opening when he shook hands!  Suppose he had kissed her instead!  Or, suppose he casually addressed her as darling!  He might do it at any moment now!  Just for once she would not mind though he did it in public.  Perhaps as soon as this new remark of Elspeth’s was finished, he meant to say:  “You are not the only engaged person in the room, Miss Elspeth; I think I see another two!” Grizel laughed as if she had heard him say it.  And then she ceased laughing suddenly, for some little duty had called Elspeth into the other room, and as she went out she stopped the movement of the earth.

These two were alone with their great joy.

Elspeth had said that she would be back in two minutes.  Was Grizel wasting a moment when she looked only at him, her eyes filmy with love, the crooked smile upon her face so happy that it could not stand still?  Her arms made a slight gesture towards him; her hands were open; she was giving herself to him.  She could not see.  For a fraction of time the space between them seemed to be annihilated.  His arms were closing round her.  Then she knew that neither of them had moved.

“Grizel!”

He tried to be true to her by deceiving her.  It was the only way.  “At last, Grizel,” he cried, “at last!” and he put joyousness into his voice.  “It has all come right, dear one!” he cried like an ecstatic lover.  Never in his life had he tried so hard to deceive at the sacrifice of himself.  But he was fighting something as strong as the instinct of self-preservation, and his usually expressionless face gave the lie to his joyous words.  Loud above his voice his ashen face was speaking to her, and she cried in terror, “What is wrong?” Even then he attempted to deceive her, but suddenly she knew the truth.

“You don’t want to be married!”

I think the room swam round with her.  When it was steady again, “You did not say that, did you?” she asked.  She was sure he had not said it.  She was smiling again tremulously to show him that he had not said it.

“I want to be married above all else on earth,” he said imploringly; but his face betrayed him still, and she demanded the truth, and he was forced to tell it.

A little shiver passed through her, that was all.

“Do you mean that you don’t love me?” she said.  “You must tell me what you mean.”

“That is how others would put it, I suppose,” he replied.  “I believe they would be wrong.  I think I love you in my own way; but I thought I loved you in their way, and it is the only way that counts in this world of theirs.  It does not seem to be my world.  I was given wings, I think, but I am never to know that I have left the earth until I come flop upon it with an arrow through them.  I crawl and wriggle here, and yet”—­he laughed harshly—­“I believe I am rather a fine fellow when I am flying!”