He felt wonderfully uplifted, and yet very humble, for he was awed at the thoughts of the heights which the divine spirit of man could reach.
His ship was to sail on Saturday and on Thursday when the guests who had been dining left them, he said:
'I hope we're going to be alone tomorrow.'
'As a matter of fact I've asked some Egyptians who spend the summer here.
She's a sister of the ex-Khedive and very intelligent.
I'm sure you'll like her.'
'Well, it's my last evening.
Couldn't we spend it alone?'
She gave him a glance.
There was a faint amusement in her eyes, but his were grave.
'If you like.
I can put them off.'
'Then do.'
He was to start early in the morning and his luggage was packed.
Betty had told him not to dress, but he had answered that he preferred to.
For the last time they sat down to dinner facing one another.
The dining-room, with its shaded lights, was bare and formal, but the summer night flooding in through the great open windows gave it a sober richness.
It had the effect of the private refectory in a convent to which a royal lady had retired in order to devote the remainder of her life to a piety not too austere.
They had their coffee on the terrace.
Carruthers drank a couple of liqueurs.
He was feeling very nervous.
'Betty, my dear, I've got something I want to say to you,' he began.
'Have you?
I wouldn't say it if I were you.'
She answered gently.
She remained perfectly calm, watching him shrewdly, but with the glimmer of a smile in her blue eyes.
'I must.'
She shrugged her shoulders and was silent.
He was conscious that his voice trembled a little and he was angry with himself
'You know I've been madly in love with you for many years.
I don't know how many times I've asked you to marry me.
But, after all, things change and people change too, don't they?
We're neither of us so young as we were.
Won't you marry me now, Betty?'
She gave him the smile that had always been such an attractive thing in her; it was so kindly, so frank, and still, still so wonderfully innocent.
'You're very sweet, Humphrey.
It's awfully nice of you to ask me again.
I can't tell you how touched I am.
But you know, I'm a creature of habit, I've got in the habit of saying no to you now, and I can't change it.'
'Why not?'
There was something aggressive in his tone, something almost ominous, that made her give him a quick look.
Her face blanched with sudden anger, but she immediately controlled herself.
'Because I don't want to,' she smiled.
'Are you going to marry anyone else?'
'I?
No.
Of course not.'
For a moment she seemed to draw herself up as though a wave of ancestral pride swept through her and then she began to laugh.
But whether she laughed at the thought that had passed through her mind or because something in Humphrey's proposal had amused her none but she could have told.
'Betty. I implore you to marry me.'