‘I suppose,’ said Mathilda, staring gloomily ahead, ‘I might have known that when you did propose you’d do it in some graceless fashion peculiarly your own. What makes you think I want Valerie’s leavings?’
‘My God, you are a vulgar wench!’ Stephen exclaimed, grinning.
‘Well?’ ‘I don’t know. I shouldn’t think you would want me. But I want you.’
‘Why? To save you from further entanglements with glamorous blondes?’
‘Hell, no! Because I love you.’
‘Since when?’
‘Always, I think. Consciously, since Christmas Eve. I’ve never quarrelled with you, Mathilda, have I? Do you know, I’ve never wanted to?’
‘That must be a record.’
‘It is. I won’t ever quarrel with you, my sweet. That’s a promise.’
‘It’s irresistible.’
He stopped, and swung her round to face him, holding her by the shoulders.
‘Does that mean you’ll marry me?’
She nodded, looking up at him with a faint flush in her cheeks. ‘Somebody’s clearly got to keep you in order. It may as well be me.’
He pulled her rather roughly into his arms. ‘O God, Mathilda, do keep me in order!’ he said, in a suddenly thickened voice. ‘I need you! I need you damnably!’
She found that her own voice was unsteady. ‘I know. You are such a fool, Stephen: such a dear, impossible fool!’
‘So are you, to care a damn for me,’ he said. ‘I never thought you did. I can’t think why you do.’
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