He proposed to her in three weeks, and was so sure of his ability to get what he wanted that he was stunned by her answer: 

“Perhaps I’ll make up my mind to it.  I’ll give you your answer when I come over in the spring.”

“But I want my answer now.”

“I’m sorry.  But I can’t.”

When she told Colin of her abrupt dismissal of the discomfited gentleman, she asked, almost plaintively, “Why couldn’t I say ‘yes’ at once?  It is the thing I’ve always wanted.”

“Have you really wanted it?”

“Of course.”

“Not of course.  You want other things more.”

“What for example?”

“I think you know.”

She did know, and she drew a quick breath.  Then laughed.

“You’re trying to teach me to understand my—­emotions, Colin, as you have taught me to understand my clothes.”

“You’re an apt pupil.”

Tea came in, just then, and she poured for him, telling his fortune afterward in his teacup.

“Are you superstitious?” she asked him, having worked out a future of conventional happiness and success.

“Not enough to believe what you have told me.”  He was flickering his pale lashes and smiling.  “Life shall bring me what I want because I shall make it come.”

“Oh, you think that?”

“Yes.  All things are possible to those of us who believe they are possible.”

“Perhaps to a man.  But—­to a woman.  There’s Leila, for example.  I’m afraid——­”

“You mustn’t be.  Life will come right for her.”

“How do you know?”

“It comes right for all of us, in one way or another.  You’ll find it works out.  You’re afraid for your little friend because of Ballard—­he’s pretty gay, eh?”

“Yes.  More, I think, than she understands.  But everybody else knows that they sent him away for that.  And I can’t see any way out.  If he marries her he’ll break her heart; if he doesn’t marry her he’ll break it—­and there you have it.”

“You must not put these ‘ifs’ in their way.  There’ll be some way out.”

She rose and went to a table to a little cabinet which she unlocked.

“You wouldn’t let me have my crystal ball in evidence,” she said, “because it doesn’t fit in with the rest of my new furnishings—­but it tells things.”

“What things?”

“I’ll show you.”  She set it on the table between them.  “Put your hand on each side of it.”

He grasped it with his flexible fingers.  “Don’t invent——­” he warned.

She began to speak slowly, and she was still at it when Porter’s big car drove up to the door, and he came in with Mary and Leila.

“I picked up these two on their way home,” Porter explained; “it is raining pitchforks, and I’m in my open car.  And so, kind lady, dear lady, will you give us tea?”

Colin and Delilah, each a little pale, breathing quickly, rose to greet their guests.