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"And then I walked into that parlor and said I would rather be laughed at by you than admired by the whole world." I shake my head, which is a mistake, and the room wobbles. "I must have been inspired."

"You must have been," she says, very quietly.

"Then I shall try to deserve having said it."

She looks at me. For a moment her face does something I do not understand at all. It crumples, almost. As though I have struck her, when I have only meant to promise her something.

Then she presses her lips together, and it is gone.

***

"Ahem," says Pettigrew, from the hearth.

We both look round.

"Forgive me, sir." He is pink to the tips of his ears. "Only—the quarter of an hour, sir. I must be strict. I promised her ladyship."

"You promised her ladyship nothing of the kind. You fled from her ladyship with your coat-tails smoking."

"Y-yes, sir. Nevertheless, sir."

"Five minutes more."

Pettigrew looks at Miss Bennet. Miss Bennet looks at Pettigrew. They seem to be in some kind of conspiracy against me, which I find I do not mind in the least.

"Five minutes," says Pettigrew unhappily. "And nothing stimulating."

"We shall discuss the weather again."

"Very good, sir."

I turn back to her. "It is still fine," I inform her. "There. That is the weather discussed. I have five minutes, and I mean to spend them. What happened then?"

"Then?"

"After you said yes. Before I had finished." I cannot help smiling. "You said yes, and I—what did I do? Fall on one knee? Drop the workbasket again?"

The faintest color comes into her cheeks. "You did neither."

"Then what?" A thought strikes me, and I lower my voice. "Did I kiss you?"

The color in her face deepens to rose.

I watch it climb. Up from the line of her collar, across her throat, into her cheeks, all the way to the tips of her ears. I did not know she could blush like that. I find I would very much like to know what else I do not know about her.

By the window, Mrs. Collins coughs into her handkerchief with tremendous force.

"No," Miss Bennet says. Her voice is not quite steady. "You did not."

"I did not?"

"You asked if you might." She is looking at my hand now, not my face. "And I said—"

She stops.

"You said?"

She lifts her eyes to mine.