Archie occupied her first; she was sorry for Archie, because the blow that this would be to him glanced back on to her. She had long ago made up her mind not to marry him if she could succeed in the quest now accomplished, but she regretted that now she would never see his eyes glow as he blurted out—she knew he would blurt it out, and probably kiss her with that light, rough eagerness which was so characteristic of him—the tale of his love. Not so many weeks ago, at Silorno, she had determined to marry him, but that was before the wider horizon opened to her. If he had proposed to her then she would certainly have accepted him, but she felt, though so much finer a future had now dawned on her, a sort of grudge against him for not having done so. That made the thought of telling him not unpleasant to her; there was an excitement in the thought of seeing his blank face—would it be blank? She thought so—when he heard her news. Perhaps the sight of how much it hurt him would hurt her also, but that pain would somehow enfold a rapture, for it would be clear how much he wanted her. But why had he not kissed her, when they sat on that last evening in the dark garden at Silorno? All might have been different then. Never till this afternoon had a man kissed her, and that kiss had struck her as being a little prim and proper. Archie would not and could not have been prim, he would have been quick and impulsive; there would have been something romantic about it, for with him she could have supplied that gleam of romance herself.
There had been fleecy clouds during this part of her meditation, and they gathered again, ever so light, as she thought of Cousin Marion and Jessie. Everybody was so clever nowadays, and she was afraid that Cousin Marion had seen that Archie was in love with her, even as Jessie had done. It would be tiresome if they behaved censoriously about it, and replied
