"How soon?"

He sat at the other end of the davenport. "In three days, and anything
can happen in three days."

He moved closer. She had a sense of panic. Was he going to propose to
her again, in this room which she had set aside so sacredly for Derry
Drake?

"Won't you have some tea?" she asked, desperately. "I'll have Julia
bring it in."

"I'd rather talk."

But she had it brought, and Julia, wheeling in the tea-cart, offered a
moment's reprieve. And Ralph ate the Lady-bread-and-butter, and the
little pound cakes with the nuts and white frosting which had been
meant for Derry, and then he walked around the tea-cart and took her
hand, and for the seventh time since he had met her he asked her to
marry him.

"But I don't love you." She was almost in tears.

"You don't know what love is--I'll teach you."

"I don't want to be taught."

"You don't know what it means to be taught--"

Jean had a stifling sense as of some great green tree bending down to