They made poor attempts at gaiety that night, and Ninian tried to make oratory about Engineers. He divided his discourse into two parts: one insisting that the war would be won by engineering feats; the other insisting that it might be lost because of the contempt of most of the military men for Engineers, which, Ninian said, was another word for Brains. "They don't think we're gentlemen," he said. "I met a 'dug-out' last week, and he was snorting about the Engineers ... hadn't a happorth of brains in his skull, the ass ... and I asked him why it was that he thought so little of them. Do you know what he said? 'Oh,' says he, 'they're always readin' books an' ... an' inventin' things!' That's the kind of chap we've got to endure! Isn't he priceless? I very nearly told him he ought to be embalmed ... only I thought to myself he'd think that was the sort of remark an engineer would make. Plucky old devil, of course, but nothing in his head. If you shook it, it wouldn't rattle!... He seemed to think he'd only got to say, 'Now, then, boys, give 'em hell!' and the Germans 'ud just melt away. As I said afterwards, it's all very well, to say 'Give 'em hell,' but you can't give it to 'em, if you don't know what it's like!..."

But the oratory failed, and the gaiety fizzled out, and after a while Mrs. Graham, finding the silence and her thoughts insupportable, left them and went to bed.

"Come and say 'Good-night' to me," she said to Ninian as she left the room.

"All right, mother!" he answered.

He tried to take up the theme of engineering again. "It's no good trying to chivy Germans in the way you chivy foxes. You've got to think, and think hard. That's where we come in!..." But it was a poor effort, and he abandoned it quickly.

"I think," he said, "I'll go up and say 'Good-night' to mother. You two'll see to things!..."

"Righto, Ninian," Henry answered.

Mary came and sat beside him when Ninian had gone.

"I'm trying to feel proud," she said, "but...."

"Don't you feel proud?" he asked, fondling her.

"No. I'm anxious. It would hurt mother terribly if anything were to happen to Ninian," she answered.

"Nothing will happen to him...."

One said that just because it was comforting.

"Quinny," she said, drawing herself up to him and leaning her elbows on his knees, "do you love me really and truly?..."

He put his arms quickly about her, and drew her close to him, and kissed her passionately.

"But you haven't loved only me," she said, freeing herself.

He did not answer.

"I've never loved any one but you," she went on. "I haven't been able to love any one but you. I've tried to love some one else ... tried very hard!"

"Who was it?" he asked.

"No one you knew. It was after I'd seen you with Lady Cecily Jayne. I was jealous, Quinny!..."

"My dear," he said, flattered by the oneness of her love for him.

"But I couldn't. I just couldn't. I suppose I'm rather limited!" She made a wry smile as she spoke. "I felt stupid beside her. She talked so easily, and I couldn't think of anything to say. You must have thought I was a fool, Quinny!"

"No, Mary!..."

"Oh, but I was. I got stupider and stupider, and the more I thought of how stupid I was, the stupider I got. I could have cried with vexation. Do you remember Gilbert's party ... I mean when it was over and we were going home?"

"Yes."

"I prayed that you'd come with mother and me. I thought Ninian would go with mother, and you'd go with me ... but you didn't!"

"I remember," he answered. "I wanted to go with you...."

"Why didn't you?"

"Some one came up ... I've forgotten ... something happened, and so I didn't. I wanted to, Mary!"

"I thought then that you and I would never! ... Why did you ask me to marry you, Quinny?"

"Because I love you, Mary...."

"But ... did you mean to marry me or did you just ... sort of ... not thinking, I mean!... Oh, it's awf'lly hard to say what's in my mind, but I want to know whether you love me really and truly, Quinny, or only just asked me to marry you impulsively ... when you weren't thinking?"

"I came here loving you, Mary. I didn't mean to tell you about it so soon as I did ... that was impulse ... I couldn't help it ... the moment I saw you as the train came into the station, I felt that I must ask you at once. It would have been rather awkward if you'd said, 'No.' I suppose I should have had to go straight back to London again!... But I came here loving you. I've loved you all the time ... even when I wasn't thinking of you, but of some one else. I've come back to you always in my thoughts!..."

"Do you remember," she said, "the first time you asked me to marry you, Quinny?"

"Yes."

"I've meant it ever since then. You hurt me when you went to Ireland and didn't answer my letter...."

"I know!" he exclaimed.

"How do you know?"

"I just know. And when I talked to you about it, that time in Bloomsbury when you and Mrs. Graham and Rachel came to dine with us...."

"I made fun of it, didn't I? But I had to, Quinny. You'd been unkind, and I had to make some sort of a show, hadn't I? I had to keep my pride if I couldn't keep anything else."

"We've been stupid, both of us."

"You have," she retorted.

"I have," he said. "I've been frightfully stupid. That's what puzzles me. I'm clear-sighted enough about the people I make up in my books. The critics insist on my understanding of human motives, and I know that I have that understanding. I can get right inside my characters, and I know them through and through ... but I'm as stupid as a sheep about myself and about you and ... living people. I suppose I exhaust all my understanding on my books!"

"Well, it doesn't matter, Quinny, dear," she said. "I'll understand for the two of us!..."