THE next week Mrs. Townley drove over to Mitcham as she had promised. She brought Mary with her, and I showed them all over the place.

They could not but admire all the nice things I had gathered together, and Mrs. Townley remarked many times upon the beauty of my home and its surroundings.

Mary, however, said very little, but I could see well enough that she was quietly taking it all in. It thrilled me with a delicious joy to see her walking through the rooms that I knew she would one day call her own.

I felt sure she knew it too, for there was a gentle shyness over her the whole time, and she hardly looked at me when we were in the house.

When we came to my room —‘our room’ as I always loved to call it in my mind — Mrs. Townley was quite enthusiastic.

“Good gracious,” she ejaculated. “Everything in pink. What a luxurious apartment for a bachelor! Much too good for you! My word, how you have the impudence to tuck yourself in here every night passes my comprehension. I thought, young man, that life in the trenches had sickened you all of luxury. I expected to find you sleeping almost on bare boards, at any rate, nothing at all like this.”

“Well, Mrs. Townley,” I replied, rather embarrassed, “as a matter of fact I do generally sleep outside, but still,” I added lamely, “it’s always nice to have a room like this in a house, now, isn’t it?”

Mrs. Townley snorted. “Why, all the rooms are got up far more beautifully than you’ll ever need them, but, there, I suppose, you’ve got so much money that you really don’t know what to do with it!”

We had tea out on the verandah, and two or three times I caught Mrs. Townley taking me in very intently when Mary and I were talking together.

I thought it was perhaps striking her then for the first time that I was more than casually interested in her niece. At any rate she ceased harping on the unnecessary extravagance of everything she saw, and when we at last said good-bye and the car moved off down the drive, she turned round behind Mary and gave me what I thought was intended to be a very knowing and crafty nodding of her head.

Things went on much the same with us all for about a month, and then I thought it was high time matters came to a crisis.

Surely Mary and I had known each other long enough now, I thought, for me to go boldly to her father and tell him plainly what I meant.

At the same time I felt I would like to speak to Mary herself first. The awkward part of it was I could never somehow seem to catch her alone. There was always someone else buzzing round when I went up, and although Mary herself upon several occasions had seemed to me to be trying to manage it on her own account, in the end nothing had come off.

One Saturday afternoon when I was driving alone in my car towards the bottom of King William Street I saw the Aviemore car flash by in front of me and go down towards the Port Road. Only Sir Henry and Mrs. Townley were inside.

Then I remembered suddenly that I had heard Mrs. Townley was going to spend the week end with some friends of hers at Henley Beach, and it flashed upon me quickly that no doubt Sir Henry was then driving her over.

What an opportunity I thought to catch Mary alone. Sir Henry had not seen me, I was sure, and I could easily make up some excuse for calling unexpectedly at Aviemore.

I would ask, of course, for Sir Henry, and trust to luck for finding Mary up there on her own.

I turned the car round at once, and twenty minutes later, at most, was passing up the drive at Aviemore.

“No, Sir Henry wasn’t in; only Miss Vane, and she was somewhere in the rose garden.”

I pretended to hesitate for a moment, and then told Bunting Miss Vane would do, but he needn’t trouble, I would find her myself.

Bunting only replied “Very good, sir.” He had had many nice tips from me, and if he did think anything in his cold placid way, he at any rate allowed none of his thoughts to filter through to his face.

I walked round to the rose garden, and there, sure enough, I found Mary alone. She was cutting roses and putting them in a basket. At the sound of my footsteps on the gravel she looked up quickly.

She blushed crimson when she saw I was alone, and a pathetic helpless look came into her pretty eyes.

To my distress she looked really frightened — like some gentle hunted creature at last brought to bay.

A great pity instantly came to me, and all the triumph of my advance was checked by the questioning look of fear upon her face.

Perhaps for the first time I realised what a big thing it was I should be asking her — to become my wife.

All my sure confidence left me in a flash, and I felt as humble and uncertain as before I had been confident and proud.

After all, what right had I, I thought, to break so roughly into the calm and peaceful happenings of her maiden ways. Would all that I could offer her outweigh what she would lose?

Would love and passion, with their attendant fuller life and burdens make up to her for the for-ever closing of the chapter of girlhood’s untroubled days?

Would the red roses atone for the white?

I tell you, I felt pretty small as I stood there before her, and it was in a very humble tone of voice that I explained how I came to be there.

“I do hope I don’t disturb you, Miss Mary?” I said, looking everywhere but at her, “I came up to see Sir Henry, and Bunting told me they were all out except you, so I thought perhaps you’d not mind my leaving the message with you. But what lovely white roses you’re gathering.”

“Yes,” replied Mary, quickly recovering herself and hiding her nervousness with a little laugh, “and a certain gentleman was good enough to tell me once that he didn’t think much of the roses here — now, didn’t he?”

“No, no, Miss Mary!” I denied firmly. “I didn’t for a moment say that. I only said there were no roses here good enough for the purpose you intended for them, and I still adhere to it. As a matter of fact, there are no flowers good enough anywhere.”

She made me a little mock bow, and, to my relief, I saw the happy, roguish look steal back into her eyes.

“Dear me, Mr. Stratton,” she said ironically, “I suppose you learnt to make those pretty speeches in France. The French girls are so dainty, aren’t they?”

“Yes, some of them are awfully dainty; but, all the same, I still prefer the English and the Australian varieties.”

“I’m sure it’s very nice of you to say so, but, seriously, talking of roses, I’ll show you some glorious ones round here. So please carry my basket for me.”

I followed obediently behind her to another part of the garden, and in the subsequent half hour I noticed with grim humour how completely our relative positions had changed.

I had not yet got over the shock of seeing how frightened she undoubtedly had been at first at finding herself so unexpectedly alone with me. I knew she would be remembering the only other time we had been actually alone — those few seconds on the verandah when I had forcibly kissed her in the dark, and I was dreadfully afraid she would be thinking that, willing or unwilling, she was now helpless in my power.

So I kept away from her as far as possible, and as we passed up and down along the old-fashioned narrow paths between the roses, I took care to walk well behind her, with the big basket in my arms always well between me and the dainty little figure that trotted on in front.

For the time being at all events, I had quite given up all idea of telling her what I had purposely come up there that afternoon to say.

But if I was glum and timid, she was quite the reverse. She kept hanging back so that I should come up nearer to her, and every now and then she insisted upon my bending down to inhale the perfume of some particular bloom which she obligingly held up to me in the prettiest of little white hands imaginable.

Then, too, she apparently had no longer any fear of being alone with me in secluded parts of the garden. She didn’t keep by any means to the main paths that were in full view of the windows of the house, but led me round and round in out-of-the-way places where we were quite safe from the prying eyes of anyone who might be interested in watching us.

Presently we came to a secluded seat, arched over with a trellis of climbing roses.

Mary appeared to hesitate for a moment, and then announced that she was tired and going to sit down for a little rest. I, of course, at once sat down too but with the big basket of roses still between us.

We chatted on for a few minutes, and then Mary noticed I had not too much room at my end of the seat on account of the space occupied by the basket.

“It’s all right, Mr. Stratton,” she laughed, “you can put the basket down on the ground. I see you’re on your best behaviour today, and can be a good boy when you like.”

I put the basket down and sighed deeply.

“Well, you’re not helping me much, Miss Mary,” I said at last.

“What do you mean, I’m not helping you?” she said innocently.

“Why, you’re not helping me to be good.”

“Well, I’m not hindering you, am I?”

“I don’t know so much about that — you’re tempting me.”

“Oh, and how am I tempting you, please?”

“You know quite well enough — by coming so close to me and bringing me those roses to smell. You know what I think of you, and what an effort it is for me to be a good boy, as you call it.”

I got up and walked a few paces from the seat, but Mary made no attempt to get up.

She lay back in her corner, watching me with a roguish, provoking smile, in which, however, I fancied there was something now deeper than amusement.

I was watching her too and thinking, with a pulse that was quickening every moment now, how supremely pretty she was looking. Sitting there she was just the very perfection of daintiness, I thought.

A dream of sweetly flushed pink and white, with oh, such glorious eyes, that laughed and mocked at the same time; rich coils of golden hair over the queenly head and a determined little white chin resting in its turn meditatively upon a pretty little white hand.

She said nothing, but just watched me narrowly with a half wistful, half questioning look upon her face.

All my good resolutions flew to the four winds.

“Mary,” I said briskly, “I’m afraid you’re a little minx — at any rate, you’ve asked me plainly for all you’re now going to get.”

I methodically sat down again, but this time close beside her.

For a moment we looked intently at each other without moving, and on my face at any rate there was not the ghost of a smile.

Then she crimsoned up all over, and turning her head away looked straight before her with eyes that were half closed under the long lashes that made shadows on her cheeks.

I could stand it no longer, I reached out, and picking her up without an effort, sat her on my knees. Then putting one arm round her neck I tipped up her face quickly, and with all the passion in me free, gently brought her lips to mine.

She struggled for a moment, but then closing her eyes, lay limp and even responsive in my arms. She trembled a little, but I put her arms round my neck and she let them remain there.

It was a long while before either of us spoke, and much longer still before our thoughts came back to earth.

She let me take my fill of all I asked, and with her head upon my shoulder made no secret that she was in the same happiness as I was.

At length, after a while — a really long while — she shook herself free and started to put straight her disarranged hair.

“Well, you’re a nice boy, aren’t you, to do all this? What do you think father will say?”

“Oh, your father will say I’m a very good judge; I’m sure he will. You know, darling, yourself, that you’re awfully sweet. I really couldn’t help it, now could I?”

“Of course you could. I didn’t ask you to kiss me.”

“No, but you wanted me to, didn’t you?”

“What impudence! and another time, if you kiss me, John, please don’t disarrange my hair so.”

I at once promptly kissed her again, and this time as there was no struggling — I didn’t upset her hair.

“Look here, darling,” I said, after another long silence, “when can I see your father about you?”

She made a little wry face, and considered for a moment. “You’d better stop to dinner to-night. Father won’t be home until nearly seven.”

“Yes, but what excuse can I give. I can’t blurt out all at once, ‘Oh, please Sir Henry, Mary loves me.’”

“You’d better not,” she laughed; “father thinks a lot of me.”

“Just as if I didn’t know that. But, what sweetheart, shall I say?”

“Well, give him the message you were going to leave with me when you came up.”

I grinned, and Mary shook her head prettily and laughed.

“Oh, you fibber, I thought at the time you were not speaking the truth. I knew you had no message to leave.”

“No,” I said calmly, “I saw your father and your aunt going off in the car towards Henley — that’s what made me come up here to catch you alone.”

“Well, I kept you at your distance, Mr. John, didn’t I?” with a little mocking bow, “until at any rate I saw fit to let you — to let you come near me.”

“You did that, sweetheart.” I replied gravely, “in fact, I was almost going off without kissing you at all, if you hadn’t suddenly encouraged me and egged me on.”

“Oh, you are a fibber again; but, dear boy, I just loved you for it. I could see you were trying so hard to be good. Do you know,” she went on laughing, “I think I shall get really fond of you?” and of her own accord she put up her face for me to kiss.

“Well, dear,” I said presently, “what about that excuse? I must find something to say.”

“Say then that you came up to inquire how aunty was. Father will be rather amused, I’m sure; and then you can say I kept you to mend the chicken run. You told us the other day you could do any kind of carpentering. Yes, that’s a splendid idea. The door of the chicken run was blown down in the gale on Sunday, and there’s no one to mend it as the gardener is away ill. It’s worrying father a lot, for the fowls keep on getting out. But I hope, for goodness sake, you really do know something about carpentering, and it isn’t another of your dreadful fibs.”

“Mary,” I replied solemnly, “I’m a dab at it.”

An hour later, when Sir Henry came into the paddock, he found Mary and me with our heads close together, proudly inspecting a most workman-like repair of the wretched chicken door.

“Hello, Mr. Stratton,” he called out genially. “Bunting told me what you were doing (the deuce he did I thought). Why, you’ve made quite a good job of it! The least we can do is to ask you to dinner, isn’t it, Mary?&rdqu............