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Rh lovely, because he did not know what to do next. His brain throbbed as he laboured to find what to say or do and at last, with an astounding emphasis, he said:

"The next thing is to get married."

"O! I couldn't," said Stella quietly.

"By God, you shall!" replied Digby with a violence that almost laid him flat, because he had never had a will before and he felt uncomfortably and unaccountably that this will was not his own.

She broke into a peal of happy laughter and Digby said:

"Of course you will."

"Of course I will," she said, tucking her hand into arm.

He trembled and whispered to himself:

"This is happiness. I am happy."

He wanted terribly to say it out loud but he knew that although Stella was only a child she knew far more about it than he did. It was quite extraordinary how, when she had stood with her head thrown back, there was in her eyes an expression of having gained something which she had almost lost.

After his startling revelation of will Digby was perfectly helpless. The vision of Stella that he had had was completely gone, and he began to see her as a heroine. That was disconcerting because he could not see himself as a hero, and he stood foolishly fumbling with finger and thumb at his moustache.

"O! you darling! darling little man!" cried Stella, flinging her arms round him suddenly. "You are mine, mine, mine."

Digby melted into a delicious sense of being a darling, but through it there came stabbing the knowledge that the charm he had for her was her own, and that it had all happened because she was so very young, and so vital, and so unaware of what she was: a lovely thing, no longer child and not yet woman. He mumbled:

"I don't think we quite know—?"

But she pressed her hand over his lips and would not let him speak, and tears trickled down his cheek and he knew that he was not a man or anything like one: just a joke, just an oddity. So he broke into blubbering:

"I adore you. I adore you."

Stella hugged him for that, took him firmly by the hand and led him back to the house.