was suddenly stretched towards
me, and I thought at first he was trying to grab one of mine. I did my
best to edge away along the sofa, but I was up against the end
already.

"Then his hand opened, and something dropped into my lap. It was the
key of the door.

"'I have locked it,' he said, 'not with any intention of keeping you
in, but in the hope of keeping other people out. You are perfectly
free to get up and go whenever you please, if you don't wish to listen
to what I have to say.'

"Well, dear, I suppose I ought to have risen to my full height, and,
with a few superb gestures of haughty contempt, have swept
majestically from the room. But--I didn't! I saw I was in for another
proposal, and as the man couldn't eat me I decided to let him do his
worst.

"It was a weird proposal, though." [_Spelt 'wierd.'_] "It wasn't
exactly what he said, because one is never surprised at anything a
man may say when he is proposing; but the way he said it. All men
say pretty much the same thing in the end, but most of them are so
_horribly_ nervous that they simply don't know what they're talking
about for the first five minutes or so. (Do you remember poor little
Algy Brock? He was nearly _crying_ all the time. At least he was
with me, and I suppose he was with you too.) But Robin might have
been having a chat with his solicitor the way he behaved. I'll tell
you..."

Robin apparently began by telling Dolly, quite simply and plainly, that
he loved her. Then he gave a brief outline of the history of his
affection. It had begun at the very beginning of things, he said, almost
as soon as he discovered that he could distinguish Dolly from Dilly
without the aid of the brown spot. "And that was after I had been in the
house just three days," he added.

For some time, it appeared, he had been content to be pleasantly in
love. He enjoyed Dolly's society when it came his way, but with native
caution he had taken care to avoid seeking too much of it in case he
should gradually find himself unable to do without it.

"I saw from the first," he said, "that you were entirely unconscious of
my feelings towards you; and I would not have had it otherwise. If I was
to succeed at all it must be as an acquired taste; and acquired tastes,
as you know, are best formed unconsciously."

Dolly nodded to show her detached appreciation of the soundness of this
point.

"I permitted myself one indulg