There was a long silence.

“It’s the most perfect thing in the world,” Susan stated, very gently and with great conviction.  It was no longer merely a proposal of marriage, but of marriage with Arthur, with whom she was in love.

In the silence that followed, holding his hand tightly in hers, she prayed to God that she might make him a good wife.

“And what will Mr. Perrott say?” she asked at the end of it.

“Dear old fellow,” said Arthur who, now that the first shock was over, was relaxing into an enormous sense of pleasure and contentment.  “We must be very nice to him, Susan.”

He told her how hard Perrott’s life had been, and how absurdly devoted he was to Arthur himself.  He went on to tell her about his mother, a widow lady, of strong character.  In return Susan sketched the portraits of her own family—­Edith in particular, her youngest sister, whom she loved better than any one else, “except you, Arthur. . . .  Arthur,” she continued, “what was it that you first liked me for?”

“It was a buckle you wore one night at sea,” said Arthur, after due consideration.  “I remember noticing—­it’s an absurd thing to notice!—­that you didn’t take peas, because I don’t either.”

From this they went on to compare their more serious tastes, or rather Susan ascertained what Arthur cared about, and professed herself very fond of the same thing.  They would live in London, perhaps have a cottage in the country near Susan’s family, for they would find it strange without her at first.  Her mind, stunned to begin with, now flew to the various changes that her engagement would make—­how delightful it would be to join the ranks of the married women—­no longer to hang on to groups of girls much younger than herself—­to escape the long solitude of an old maid’s life.  Now and then her amazing good fortune overcame her, and she turned to Arthur with an exclamation of love.

They lay in each other’s arms and had no notion that they were observed.  Yet two figures suddenly appeared among the trees above them.  “Here’s shade,” began Hewet, when Rachel suddenly stopped dead.  They saw a man and woman lying on the ground beneath them, rolling slightly this way and that as the embrace tightened and slackened.  The man then sat upright and the woman, who now appeared to be Susan Warrington, lay back upon the ground, with her eyes shut and an absorbed look upon her face, as though she were not altogether conscious.  Nor could you tell from her expression whether she was happy, or had suffered something.  When Arthur again turned to her, butting her as a lamb butts a ewe, Hewet and Rachel retreated without a word.  Hewet felt uncomfortably shy.

“I don’t like that,” said Rachel after a moment.

“I can remember not liking it either,” said Hewet.  “I can remember—­” but he changed his mind and continued in an ordinary tone of voice, “Well, we may take it for granted that they’re engaged.  D’you think he’ll ever fly, or will she put a stop to that?”