"Philip, my friend," she said caressingly, "forgive me. You are an angel of patience. I did not come here to-night to show you my new frock, or torment you."
"I had gathered that," replied Philip gravely. "Won't you sit down?"
He drew up an armchair to the fire, and the girl sank into it luxuriously, extending her flimsily shod feet to the blaze. Philip stood with an elbow upon the mantelpiece, looking down upon his love. All his life he never forgot the picture that Peggy presented at that moment--enthroned in his old armchair in the dimly lit, smoke-laden room, in her shimmering ball-dress, the firelight tingeing her bare arms and shoulders, and her brown eyes and honey-coloured hair glinting in its rays.
"Can I help you about anything?" he asked bluntly.
"Yes, Philip, you can. I want to tell you something. I--I have just had a proposal!"
"Where? When?" asked Philip involuntarily.
"At the Freeborns' dance, on the top of a flight of stairs, about three quarters of an hour ago," replied Peggy with great precision.
"I had a kind of notion," said Philip lamely, "that these events always occurred in a conservatory. You know--Chinese lanterns--distant music--exotic atmosphere--and so on! Was it a good proposal?"
"Fair to middling, so far as my experience goes."
"No," said the girl soberly, "he didn't. I maintained my equilibrium: it's a way I have. But you mustn't think I didn't enjoy it. It was most thrilling."
"Quite good, in fact, for a first attempt?"
"First attempt?" Peggy's eyebrows went up. "How do you know it was a first attempt? Have you guessed who it was?"
"How upsetting of you. I wanted it to be a surprise."
"It is. He was dining here to-night, obviously on the war-path, and bound for the Freeborns' dance. But I never guessed you were the objective: I didn't know you were in town, for one thing. So you came here to tell me your news?"
"Yes," said Peggy. "Not altogether," she added slowly. "I--I want to consult you, Philip. It's a big thing for a girl to have to decide on a plunge like this--the biggest thing she ever does. It rather--rather frightens her at times. If she has no mother, and no brothers or sisters, and--and a dad like my dad, it becomes a bigger thing than ever. Her best course, then, is to pick out the whitest man she knows, and ask him to advise her. That is why I am here."