“Friends!” he cried, and gave a bitter laugh.  “I was never friends with you, Margaret.  Why, even as I read my verses to you—­those pallid, ineffectual verses that praised you timorously under varied names—­even then there pulsed in my veins the riotous paean of love, the great mad song of love that shamed my paltry rhymes.  I cannot be friends with you, child!  I must have all or nothing.  Bid me hope or go!”

Miss Hugonin meditated for a moment and did neither.

“Beautiful,” she presently queried, “would you be very, very much shocked if I descended to slang?”

“I think,” said he, with an uncertain smile, “that I could endure it.”

“Why, then—­cut it out, beautiful!  Cut it out!  I don’t believe a word you’ve said, in the first place; and, anyhow, it annoys me to have you talk to me like that.  I don’t like it, and it simply makes me awfully, awfully tired.”

With which characteristic speech, Miss Hugonin leaned back and sat up very rigidly and smiled at him like a cherub.

Kennaston groaned.

“It shall be as you will,” he assured her, with a little quaver in his speech that was decidedly effective.  “And in any event, I am not sorry that I have loved you, beautiful child.  You have always been a power for good in my life.  You have gladdened me with the vision of a beauty that is more than human, you have heartened me for this petty business of living, you have praised my verses, you have even accorded me certain pecuniary assistance as to their publication—­though I must admit that to accept it of you was very distasteful to me.  Ah!” Felix Kennaston cried, with a quick lift of speech, “impractical child that I am, I had not thought of that!  My love had caused me to forget the great barrier that stands between us.”

He gasped and took a short turn about the court.

“Pardon me, Miss Hugonin,” he entreated, when his emotions were under a little better control, “for having spoken as I did.  I had forgotten.  Think of me, if you will, as no better than the others—­think of me as a mere fortune-hunter.  My presumption will be justly punished.”

“Oh, no, no, it isn’t that,” she cried; “it isn’t that, is it?  You—­you would care just as much about me if I were poor, wouldn’t you, beautiful?  I don’t want you to care for me, of course,” Margaret added, with haste.  “I want to go on being friends.  Oh, that money, that nasty money!” she cried, in a sudden gust of petulance.  “It makes me so distrustful, and I can’t help it!”

He smiled at her wistfully.  “My dear,” said he, “are there no mirrors at Selwoode to remove your doubts?”

“I—­yes, I do believe in you,” she said, at length.  “But I don’t want to marry you.  You see, I’m not a bit in love with you,” Margaret explained, candidly.

Ensued a silence.  Mr. Kennaston bowed his head.

“You bid me go?” said he.

“No—­not exactly,” said she.