I dare say you think me a cheeky young beggar to suggest it, point
blank. But I want you to give me seven days; and, in those seven days,
I am going to win you. Then it will seem to you, as it does to me, the
only possible thing to do."

His brown eyes were wide open now; and the glory of the love shining
out from them dazzled her. She looked away.

Then the swift colour swept over the face which all Cambridge
considered classic in its stern strong beauty, and she laughed; but
rather breathlessly.

"You amazing boy!" she said. "Do you consider it right to take away a
person's breath, in this fashion? Or are you trying to be funny?"

"I have no designs on your breath," said the Boy; "and it is my
misfortune, but not my fault, if I seem funny." Then he sat forward in
his chair, his elbows on his knees, and both brown hands held out
towards her. "I want you to understand, dear," he continued,
earnestly, "that I have said only a very little of all I have to say.
But I hope that little is to the point; and I jolly well mean it."

The Aunt laughed again, and swung the toe of her neat brown shoe; a
habit she had, when trying to appear more at ease than she felt.

"It is certainly to the point," she said. "There can be no possible
doubt about that. But are you aware, dear boy, that I have been
assiduously chaperoning you and my niece, during the past two weeks;
and watching, with the affectionate interest of a middle-aged relative,
the course of true love running with satisfactory and unusual
smoothness?"

The Boy ignored the adjectives and innuendoes, and went straight to the
point. He always had a way of ignoring all side issues or carefully
introduced irrelevancy. It made him a difficult person to deal with,
if the principal weapon in your armoury was elaborate argument.

"Why did you say 'Don't'?" asked the Boy.

The Aunt fell at once into the unintentional trap. She dropped her
calmly amused manner and answered hurriedly, while again the swift
colour flooded her face: "Boy dear, I hardly know. It was something
you did, which, for a moment, I could not quite bear. Something passed
from you to me, too intimate, too sweet, to be quite right. I said
'Don't,' as involuntarily as one would say 'Don't' to a threatened
blow."

"It wasn't a blow," said the Boy, tenderly. "It was a kiss. Every
time I looked at your dear beautiful hand, lifting the silver teapot, I
kissed it. Didn't you feel it was a kis