"Rot!" said Peter, flushing, "that sounds like servants' talk!"
"Well, of course I know it is nonsense---" Susan began. And, despite her utmost effort, two tears slipped down her cheeks.
"And if we were engaged it would be all right, is that it?" Peter said, after an embarrassed pause.
"Yes, but I don't want you to think for one instant---" Susan began, with flaming cheeks.
"I wish to the Lord people would mind their own business," Peter said vexedly. There was a pause. Then he added, cheerfully, "Tell 'em we're engaged then, that'll shut 'em up!"
The world rocked for Susan.
"Oh, but Peter, we can't--it wouldn't be true!"
"Why wouldn't it be true?" he demanded, perversely.
"Because we aren't!" persisted Susan, rubbing an old blot on the desk with a damp forefinger.
"I thought one day we said that when I was forty-five and you were forty-one we were going to get married?" Peter presently reminded her, half in earnest, half irritated.
"D-d-did we?" stammered Susan, smiling up at him through a mist of tears.
"Sure we did. We said we were going to start a stock-ranch, and raise racers, don't you remember?"
A faint recollection of the old joke came to her.
"Well, then, are we to let people know that in twenty years we intend to be married?" she asked, laughing uncertainly.
Peter gave his delighted shout of amusement. The conversation had returned to familiar channels.
"Lord, don't tell anyone! WE'LL know it, that's enough!" he said.
That was all. There was no chance for sentiment, they could not even clasp hands, here in the office. Susan, back at her desk, tried to remember exactly what HAD been said and implied.
"Peter, I'll have to tell Auntie!" she had exclaimed.
Peter had not objected, had not answered indeed.
"I'll have to take my time about telling MY aunt," he had said, "but there's time enough! See here, Susan, I'm dated with Barney White in Berkeley to-night--is that all right?"
"Surely!" Susan had assured him laughingly.
"You see," Peter had explained, "it'll be a very deuce of a time before we'll want everyone to know. There's any number of things to do. So perhaps it's just as well if people don't suspect---"
"Peter, how extremely like you not to care what people think as long as we're not engaged, and not to want them to suspect it when we are!" Susan could say, smiling above the deep hurt in her heart.