“Can I come too?” he asked.

“Certainly not!” she answered.  “It isn’t an affair for you to be mixed up in, and besides it would spoil my chance.”

“You are not encouraging,” he said.  “Seriously, Virginia, do let me come.”

“No!” she answered, glancing at the clock, “and I must be going in a very few minutes.”

“You haven’t told me yet when you will marry me,” he reminded her.

She looked at him piteously.

“Please don’t be foolish,” she said, “I cannot marry you; I can never marry you.  I told you that before.  You must please put it out of your head.  I am going now, and it must be”—­her voice trembled a little—­“good-bye!”

“It will be nothing of the sort,” he answered.  “Do you care for me a little, Virginia?”

“I—­perhaps I do,” she faltered.

“I thought you did,” he whispered, smiling.  “I hoped so, anyhow.  That settles it, Virginia.  You haven’t a chance of getting away from me, dear.  You may just as well make up your mind to be Mrs. Mildmay as soon as I can get that license.”

“You are the most impossible person!” she declared in despair.  “How can I make you believe me?”

“Nohow,” he answered.  “Let me come with you, please, this evening.”

“I will not,” she answered firmly.  “Do believe me, please, that it is impossible.”

“Very well, then,” he answered, “you shall have your own way, but on one condition, and that is that you tell me where I can find you to-morrow.  I shall probably have the license then.”

Virginia looked around the room as though seeking for some means of escape, and yet she knew that every word he uttered was a delight to her; that a new joy, against which she was powerless to fight, was filling her life.  It was absurd, impossible, not to be thought of, and yet all the time his insistence delighted her.  He had so much the air of one who has always his own way.  She felt her powers of resistance becoming almost impotent, and she watched their dissipation with secret joy.  How was it possible to resist a lover so confident, so authoritative, especially when her whole heart was filled with a passionate longing to throw everything else to the winds and to place her hands in his.  Perhaps by to-morrow, she thought, things would seem different to her, but in the meantime she gave him the address of the boarding-house in Russell Street.  How could she help it!

“I shall be there,” he said, “sometime before twelve to-morrow morning.  You won’t be going out before then?”

“I—­suppose not,” she faltered.

He called the waiter and asked for the bill for his dinner.  Hers she had already paid.  She rose to her feet.

“Please,” she said earnestly, “do not come out with me.  I am going now, and where I am going I must go alone.”

He glanced opposite, to where the three men were still sitting.

“Very well,” he said, “I will let you go.  You will permit me, I presume, to see you out of the restaurant?”