“Yes.”

“Then go and tell him that if he will come here and ask me a direct question, I will give him a direct answer—­which will satisfy Lady Alanby.”

Lady Mary caught her breath.

“Do you know, you are the most wonderful girl I ever saw!” she exclaimed.  “But if you only knew what I feel about Janie!” And tears rushed into her eyes.

“I feel just the same thing about my sister,” said Miss Vanderpoel.  “I think Rosy and Lady Jane are rather alike.”

. . . . .

When Tommy tramped across the grass towards her he was turning red and white by turns, and looking somewhat like a young man who was being marched up to a cannon’s mouth.  It struck him that it was an American kind of thing he was called upon to do, and he was not an American, but British from the top of his closely-cropped head to the rather thick soles of his boots.  He was, in truth, overwhelmed by his sense of his inadequacy to the demands of the brilliantly conceived, but unheard-of situation.  Joy and terror swept over his being in waves.

The tall, proud, wood-nymph look of her as she stood under a tree, waiting for him, would have struck his courage dead on the spot and caused him to turn and flee in anguish, if she had not made a little move towards him, with a heavenly, every-day humanness in her eyes.  The way she managed it was an amazing thing.  He could never have managed it at all himself.

She came forward and gave him her hand, and really it was her hand which held his own comparatively steady.

“It is for Lady Jane,” she said.  “That prevents it from being ridiculous or improper.  It is for Lady Jane.  Her eyes,” with a soft-touched laugh, “are the colour of the blue speedwell I showed you.  It is the colour of babies’ eyes.  And hers look as theirs do—­as if they asked everybody not to hurt them.”

He actually fell upon his knee, and bending his head over her hand, kissed it half a dozen times with adoration.  Good Lord, how she saw and knew!

“If Jane were not Jane, and you were not you,” the words rushed from him, “it would be the most outrageous—­the most impudent thing a man ever had the cheek to do.”

“But it is not.”  She did not draw her hand away, and oh, the girlish kindness of her smiling, supporting look.  “You came to ask me if——­”

“If you would marry me, Miss Vanderpoel,” his head bending over her hand again.  “I beg your pardon, I beg your pardon.  Oh Lord, I do.’

“I thank you for the compliment you pay me,” she answered.  “I like you very much, Sir Thomas—­and I like you just now more than ever—­but I could not marry you.  I should not make you happy, and I should not be happy myself.  The truth is——­” thinking a moment, “each of us really belongs to a different kind of person.  And each of knows the fact.”

“God bless you,” he said.  “I think you know everything in the world a woman can know—­and remain an angel.”