Cloud, the Smiter by Arthur Gask

Breakfast-time at Clyde House the next morning was not without its embarrassments for three of the four people seated at the table, and it was only Maude McIver herself who seemed entirely at her ease.

Mr. McIver was thoughtful, and curious as to how far his niece and Romilly had committed themselves together the previous day; Mrs. Carter was in a bad humour because of an attack of rheumatism that she was sure was coming on, and Romilly himself was nervous that perhaps he had been too forward the previous evening and had lost ground with the woman that he loved, for with the morning light, the presumption of his intending to ask her to be his wife, seemed, to say the least of it, to be a staggering one.