ay, I'm going to be married."

"Not _really_?"

"Check this unflattering display of incredulity--I am."

"Really and truly? And you never told me a thing. I hate slyness and
secretiveness. Nina, who is it? Do I know him?"

Nina named a name.

"Never even heard of him. But where did you meet him? It really is
rather deceitful of you."

"I always meant to tell you, only there was nothing to tell till
yesterday except----"

"Except everything," said Molly. "Well, tell me now."

Nina jumped up and shook the bath-bun crumbs off her green muslin
pinafore.

"Promise not to be horrid, and I will."

"I won't--I promise I won't."

"Then it's--it's him--the 'stranger who might'--you know. And I really
should have told you, though there wasn't anything to tell, only--don't
laugh."

"I'm not. Can't you see I'm not? Only what?"

"Well, when I spoke to him that day in the train, I said, 'Why shouldn't
we talk?' And he said, 'I--I--I--be--be--be--because I stammer so.' And
he _did_. You never heard anything like it. It was awful. He took hours
to get out those few words, and I didn't know where to look. And I felt
such a brute because of the things we'd said about him, that I had no
sense left; and I told him straight out how I'd wondered he never even
said he wondered how late the train was when we were waiting for the
9.1, and I was glad it was stammering and not disagreeableness. And then
I said I wasn't glad he stammered, but so sorry; and he was awfully nice
about it, and I told him about that man who cured your brother Cecil of
stammering, and he went to him at once: and he's almost all right now."

"Good gracious!" said Molly. "Are you sure--but why didn't he get cured
long ago?"

"He had a mother: she stammered frightfully--after the shock of his
father's death, or something, and he got into the way of it from her.
And--anyway he didn't. I think it was so as not to hurt his mother's
feelings, or something. I don't quite understand. And he said it didn't
seem to matter when she was dead. And he's an artist. He sells his
pictures too, and he teaches. He has a studio in Chelsea."

"It all sounds a little thin; but if you're pleased, I'm sure I am."

"I am," said Nina.

"But what did he say when he asked you?"

"He didn't ask me," said Nina.

"But surely he said he'd loved you since the first moment he saw you?"

Nina had to admit it.

"Then you see I wasn't such a vulgar little donkey after all."

"Y