"We will suffer a month to pass, Jane," he told her. "Let a full month go
by for us to see where we stand and get the situation clear in our minds.
Certain it is that nought that could happen will ever cloud my undying
affection for you, and I well know I'm the light also to which your fine
daughterly devotions turn. So let this high matter be dead between us till
four weeks have slipped by."

"Like your sense to suggest it," she answered.

And the subject weren't named again between 'em till somebody else named
it.

But meantime John didn't hesitate to take the affair in strict secrecy to
the woman who had promised to wed him; and when the engagement was known,
of course, Martin Ball struck while the iron was hot and felt a great
bound of hope that Jane would now look upon him with very different eyes.
And even while he hoped, his spirit sank a bit now and again in her
company. But he put the weak side away and told himself that love was at
best a fleeting passion.

Jane didn't say much to him herself, because in truth she would have a
thousand times sooner bided at Wych Elm with her parent than wed the busy
man of Little Silver; but Martin screwed himself to the pinch and urged
her to let there be a double wedding. He found her very evasive, however,
for hope hadn't died in Jane, and she knew by a good few signs her father
was hating the thought of losing her. The idea of Jane away from Wych Elm
caused him a lot of deep inconvenience, and Nelly Bascombe seemingly
weren't so much on his side as he had hoped. Of course the woman well knew
that life at Wych Elm would be far more unrestful with Jane than without