“Why should I not?”

“Oh, for the matter of that there is no reason why you should not, but I can’t congratulate you either on your friend or your taste.”

“Leaving my taste out of the question, why do you call Lord Minster my friend?”

“Because Miss Terry told me that he was; she said that he was always proposing to you, and that you would probably marry him in the end.”

Mildred blushed faintly.

“She has no business to tell you; but, for the matter of that, so have many other men.  It does not follow that, because they choose to propose to me, they are my friends.”

“No, but then they have not married you.”

“No more has he; but, while we are talking of it, why should I not marry Lord Minster?  He can give me position, influence, everything that is dear to a woman, except the rarest of all gifts—­love.”

“But is love so rare, Mildred?”

“Yes, the love that it can satisfy a woman either to receive or to give, especially the latter, for in this we are more blessed in giving than in receiving.  It is but very rarely that the most fortunate of us get a chance of accepting such love as I mean, and we can only give it once in our lives.  But you have not told me your reasons against my marrying Lord Minster.”

“Because he is a mean-spirited, selfish man.  If he were not, he could not have talked as he did last night.  Because you do not love him, Mildred, you cannot love such a man as that, if he were fifty times a member of the Government.”

“What does it matter to you, Arthur,” she said, in a voice of indescribable softness, bending her sunny head low over her work, “whether I love him or not; my doing so would not make your heart beat the faster.”

“I don’t wish you to marry him,” he said, confusedly.

She raised her head and looked full at him with eyes which shone like stars through a summer mist.

“That is enough, Arthur,” she answered, in a tone of gentle submission, “if you do not wish it, I will not,” and, rising, she left the room.

Arthur blushed furiously at her words, and a new sensation crept over him.

“Surely,” he said to himself, “she cannot——­ No, of course she only means that she will take my advice.”

But, though he dismissed the suspicion thus readily, it left something that he could not quite define behind it.  He had, after the manner of young men were women are concerned, thought that he understood Mildred thoroughly; now he came to the modest conclusion that he knew very little about her.

On the following afternoon, when he was at the Quinta talking as usual to Mrs. Carr, he saw Lord Minster coming up the steps of the portico, dressed in much the same way and with exactly the same air as he was accustomed to assume when he mounted those of the “Reform,” or occasionally, if he thought that the “hungry electors” wanted “pandering” to, those of the new “National Club.”