“Well?”

“Well?  Is not that enough?  Do you think it fair to take advantage of this girl’s ignorance of the world?”

Lavender stopped in the middle of the path, and said, somewhat stiffly, “This may be as well settled at once.  You have talked of flirtation and all that sort of thing.  You may regard it as you please, but before I leave this island I mean to ask Sheila Mackenzie to be my wife.”

“Why, you are mad!” cried Ingram, amazed to see that the young man was perfectly serious.

The other shrugged his shoulders.

“Do you mean to say,” continued Ingram, “that even supposing Sheila would consent—­which is impossible—­you would try to take away that girl from her father?”

“Girls must leave their fathers some time or other,” said Lavender somewhat sullenly.

“Not unless they are asked.”

“Oh well, they are sure to be asked, and they are sure to go.  If their mothers had not done so before them, where would they be?  It’s all very well for you to talk about it and argue it out as a theory, but I know what the facts of the case are, and what any man in my position would do; and I know that I am careless of any consequences so long as I can secure her for my wife.”

“Apparently you are—­careless of any consequences to herself or those about her.”

“But what is your objection, Ingram?” said the young man, suddenly abandoning his defiant manner:  “why should you object?  Do you think I would make a bad husband to the woman I married?”

“I believe nothing of the sort.  I believe you would make a very good husband if you were to marry a woman whom you knew something about, and whom you had really learned to love and respect through your knowledge of her.  I tell you, you know nothing about Sheila Mackenzie as yet.  If you were to marry her to-morrow, you would discover in six months she was a woman wholly different from what you had expected.”

“Very well, then,” said Lavender with an air of triumph, “you can’t deny this:  you think so much of her that the real woman I would discover must be better than the one I imagine; and so you don’t expect I shall be disappointed?”

“If you marry Sheila Mackenzie you will be disappointed—­not through her fault, but your own.  Why, a more preposterous notion never entered into a man’s head!  She knows nothing of your friends or your ways of life:  you know nothing of hers.  She would be miserable in London, even if you could persuade her father to go with her, which is the most unlikely thing in the world.  Do give up this foolish idea, like a good fellow; and do it before Sheila is dragged into a flirtation that may have the most serious consequences to her.”