They sat down under the trees and for a long time neither spoke. He was
the first to break the silence:
"Joan, will you marry me?" he said abruptly.
It was the same old familiar phrase that she had heard so often before,
and she found it hard to believe that they were two middle-aged people
instead of the boy and girl of twenty years ago, but in another moment
she had flushed with annoyance.
"Is that joke in very good taste, Richard?"
He stared at her. "Joke? But I mean it!" he stammered.