“No, I dont think I do.  In fact, I am quite sure I do not—­in the way you mean.  I wish you would not talk like this, Sholto.  We have all got on so pleasantly together:  you, and I, and Nelly, and Marmaduke, and my father.  And now you begin making love, and stuff of that kind.  Pray let us agree to forget all about it, and remain friends as before.”

“You need not be anxious about our future relations:  I shall not embarrass you with my society again.  I hoped to find you a woman capable of appreciating a man’s passion, even if you should be unable to respond to it.  But I perceive that you are only a girl, not yet aware of the deeper life that underlies the ice of conventionality.”

“That is a very good metaphor for your own case,” said Marian, interrupting him.  “Your ordinary manner is all ice, hard and chilling.  One may suspect that there are depths beneath, but that is only an additional inducement to keep on the surface.”

“Then even your amiability is a delusion!  Or is it that you are amiable to the rest of the world, and reserve taunts of coldness and treachery for me?”

“No, no,” she said, angelic again.  “You have taken me up wrongly.  I did not mean to taunt you.”

“You conceal your meaning as skilfully as—­according to you—­I have concealed mine.  Good-morning.”

“Are you going already?”

“Do you care one bit for me, Marian?”

“I do indeed.  Believe me, you are one of my special friends.”

“I do not want to be one of your friends.  Will you be my wife?”

“Sholto!”

“Will you be my wife?”

“No.  I——­”

“Pardon me.  That is quite sufficient.  Good-morning.”

The moment he interrupted her, a change in her face shewed she had a temper.  She did not move a muscle until she heard the house door close behind him.  Then she ran upstairs to the drawing-room, where Miss McQuinch was still practising.

“Oh, Nelly,” she cried, throwing herself into an easy chair, and covering her face with her hands.  “Oh!  Oh!  Oh!  Oh!  Oh!” She opened her fingers and looked whimsically at her cousin, who, despising this stage business, said, impatiently: 

“Well?”

“Do you know what Sholto came for?”

“To propose to you.”

“Stop, Nelly.  You do not know what horrible things one may say in jest.  He has proposed.”

“When will the wedding be?”

“Dont joke about it, please.  I scarcely know how I have behaved, or what the meaning of the whole scene is, yet.  Listen.  Did you ever suspect that he was—­what shall I say?—­courting me?”

“I saw that he was trying to be tender in his own conceited way.  I fully expected he would propose some day, if he could once reconcile himself to a wife who was not afraid of him.”

“And you never told me.”

“I thought you saw it for yourself; particularly as you encouraged him.”