At last, she said-- "You mean--he'll propose to Alice ?" "Isn't that what's expected ?" He too had reddened.

He was a shy man, and he was suddenly conscious that he had done a marked thing.
Another silence.

Then Constance faced him, her face now more than flushed--aflame.
"I see.

You think I have been behaving badly ?" He stammered.
"I didn't know perhaps--whether--you have been such a little while here--whether you had come across the Oxford gossip.

I wish sometimes--you know I'm an old friend of your uncle--that it could be settled.