“I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting,” was her greeting.  “Really I couldn’t help it.  I just couldn’t get up this morning.  You know how one feels after going to bed at four.  It was very nice of you to come so early.  Have you had any breakfast?”

All this was poured out while her hand lay in his, her gay young face uplifted, half-merry, half-confiding.

Yes, Mordaunt had breakfasted.  He told her so with a faint smile.  “And please don’t apologize for being late,” he added.  “It is I who am early.  I came early on purpose.  I wanted to see you alone.”

“Oh?” said Chris.

She looked at him interrogatively and then quite suddenly she knew what he had come to say, and turned white to the lips.  For the first time she was afraid of him.

“Oh, please,” she gasped rather incoherently, “please—­”

“Shall we sit down?” he said gently.  “I am not going to do or say anything that need frighten you.  If you were a little older you would realize that I am at your mercy, not you at mine.”

She looked at him wide-eyed, imploring.  “Please, Mr. Mordaunt, can’t we—­can’t we wait a little?  I am afraid, I am so afraid of—­of making a mistake.”

The faint smile was still upon his face, though it did not reach his eyes.  He laid a reassuring hand upon her shoulder.

“My dear little Chris,” he said, “I won’t let you do that.”

That comforted her a little, though she still looked doubtful.  She suffered him to lead her to a sofa and sit beside her, but she avoided his eyes.  The crisis had come upon her so suddenly, she knew not how to deal with it.

“Has no one ever proposed to you before?” he said.

“No,” she whispered.

“Well, it’s all right,” he said kindly.  “Don’t think I am going to trade on your inexperience.  If you want to say ‘No’ to me, say it, and I’ll go.  I shall come back again, of course.  I shall keep on coming back till you say ‘Yes’ either to me or to some other man.  But I hope it won’t be another man, Chris. I want you so badly myself.”

“Do you?” she said.  “How—­how funny!”

“Why funny?” he asked.

She glanced at him speculatively; her panic was beginning to subside.  “You must be ever so much older than I am,” she said.

“I am thirty-five,” he said.

“And I’m not quite twenty-one.”  A sudden dimple appeared in the cheek nearest to him.  “Fancy me getting married!” said Chris, with a chuckle.  “I can’t imagine it, can you?”

“You will soon get used to the idea,” he said.  “Anyhow, there is nothing in it to frighten you—­that is, if you marry the right man.”

She nodded thoughtfully, her brief mirth gone.  “But, Mr. Mordaunt, how is one to know?”

He leaned towards her.  “I believe I can teach you,” he said, “if you will let me try.”

She slipped a shy hand into his.  “But you won’t ask me to marry you for a long while yet, will you?” she said pleadingly.