“Listen,” she said. “If you will be contented with regard, a high regard, on my side, I will marry you. I really like you very much. Will that do?”
“It is all I ask now. The rest will come by and by.”
“I'm not so sure. We had better be perfectly frank with each other from the start, for we shall respect each other far more. Anyhow, if you treat me decently, as I am sure you will, you may be satisfied that I shall carry out my part of the bargain. My bosom friends tell one another that I am worldly and heartless and all that--but I've never lied seriously or broken a promise in my life.”
“Very well. Let us leave it at that,” said Morland. “I suppose your people will have no objection?”
He took two or three reflective steps about the room and reseated himself on the sofa.
“Norma,” he said softly, bending towards her, “I believe on such occasions there is a sort of privilege accorded to a fellow--may I?”
She glanced at him, hesitated, then proffered her cheek. He touched it with his lips.
The ceremony over, there ensued a few minutes of anticlimax. Norma breathed more freely. There had been no difficulties, no hypocrisies. The mild approach to rapture on Morland's part was perhaps, after all, only a matter of common decency, to be accepted by her as a convention of the _scène à faire_. So was the kiss. She broke the spell of awkwardness by rising, crossing the room, and turning off an electric pendant that illuminated the full-length portrait on the wall.
“We can't stand Mrs. Wolff-Salamon's congratulations so soon,” she said with a laugh.
Conversation again became possible. They discussed arrangements. King suggested a marriage in the autumn. Norma, with a view to the prolongation of what appealed to her as a novel and desirable phase of existence--maidenhood relieved of the hateful duty of husband-hunting and unclouded by parental disapprobation--pleaded for delay till Christmas. She argued that in all human probability the Parliamentary vacancy at Cosford, the safe seat on which Morland reckoned, would occur in the autumn, and he could not fix the date of an election at his own good pleasure. He must, besides, devote his entire energy to the business; time enough when it was over to think of such secondary matters as weddings, bridal tours, and the setting up of establishments.