the table; horribly
inquisitive, some of them; but then the thing had been so frankly and
deliberately done, that we knew Dolly wanted to explain everything to us
there and then.

"I'll tell you," said Dolly, after silence had been restored by the fact
that Gerald had shouted us all down and then stopped himself. "Robin
told me--well--something, six months ago, the night after Dilly's
wedding, at the dance----"

"That _was_ why you locked the door, then," I said involuntarily.

Both Robin and Dolly turned upon me in real amazement. But I saw that
this side-issue would interrupt the story.

"Never mind!" I said. "Go on! I'll explain afterwards."

"Well," continued Dolly, "he said to me--may I tell them, Robin?" She
turned to the man beside her with a pretty air of deference. Robin, who
up to this point had sat like a graven image, inclined his head, and
Dolly proceeded--

"I have never told anybody about this--except Dilly, of course."

"I've got the letter still," said Dilly.

"Robin told me," Dolly went on, "that he wasn't going to ask me to marry
him at present, because he had some childish idea--it is perfectly
_idiotic_ to think of; but--he thought he wasn't quite--well, _good_
enough for me!"

"What rot!" said Dicky.

"Muck!" observed Gerald.

"But he said that he would ask me properly later on, as soon as he
considered that he was good enough," continued Dolly. "And as he still
seems to think," she concluded with more animation, "that he is not
quite up to standard, it occurred to me to-night, as we were all here in
a jolly little party, to notify him that he is. So I did. That's all.
Robin, you are hurting my hand!"

Robin relaxed his grip at last, and remorsefully surveyed the bloodless
fingers that lay in his palm. Then, with a rather shamefaced look all
round the table, as much as to say--"I should like fine to restrain
myself from doing this before you all, but I _can't_!"--he bent his head
and kissed them in his turn.

And that was how Robin and Dolly plighted their troth at last--openly,
without shame, and for all to see.

* * * * *

Robin and I lingered at the turning of a passage, lit only by our two
flickering bedroom candles.

"Well, we can't complain of having had an uneventful day," I said.

"I'm sorry we didn't scrape other twenty-eight votes," said Robin
characteristically.

"Never mind!" I said. "I shall be none the worse of a holiday for a yea