"I see," said Anstice very quietly. "You mean--Miss Wayne, I won't pretend to misunderstand you--you mean that Cheniston has asked you to marry him, and you have said yes."
Now the rosy colour flooded the girl's face until even her ears were pink; but her grey eyes met his frankly, and when she spoke her voice rang happily.
"You've guessed my secret very quickly," she said, relieved unconsciously by his calm manner and friendly tone. "Yes. Mr. Cheniston asked me to marry him an hour ago, and I agreed. And so, as he wants to be married almost at once, I shall have to prepare myself to live in Egypt, for a time at least."
"I don't think you need dread the prospect," he said, and his voice was creditably steady, though the world seemed to be crashing down in ruins around him. "Egypt must be a wonderfully fascinating country, and nowadays one doesn't look upon it as a land of exile. When do you think you will be going, Miss Wayne?"
"Well, Bruce has to be back in November," she said, "so if we are really to be married first"--again the rosy colour flooded her face--"it doesn't give me much time to get ready."
"No. I suppose I ought to congratulate you." He was beginning to feel he could not bear this torture much longer. "At least--it is Cheniston who is to be congratulated. But you--I can only wish you all possible happiness. I do wish it--from the bottom of my heart."
He held out his hand and she put her slender fingers into it. For just the fraction of a second longer than convention required he held them in his clasp; then he laid her hand down gently on her filmy chiffon knee.
"Miss Wayne"--he spoke rather hoarsely--"I wonder if you will think me a bear if I run away after this dance? I would not have missed these few minutes with you for anything the world might offer me; but somehow I am not in tune with gaiety to-night."
She shot a quick glance at his haggard face; and even in the midst of her own happy excitement she felt a vivid impulse of sympathy.
"Dr. Anstice, I'm so sorry." Just for an instant she laid her fingers gently on his arm; and the light touch made him wince. "You said when you came in that you had been detained, and you looked so serious I thought it must have been something dreadful which had kept you. I don't wonder you find all this"--she waved her small white fan comprehensively round--"jars upon you--now."