“He’s a useful chap,” Mercer said.  “I’m sorry there isn’t a woman in the house, but you’ll find Beelzebub better than a dozen.  And this fellow is always at hand for anything you may want in the evening.”

“He is a gentleman,” she said almost involuntarily.

Mercer looked at her.

“Do you object to having a gentleman to wait on you?” he asked curtly.

She did not quite understand his tone, but she was very far just then from understanding the man himself.  His question demanded no answer, and she gave none.

After a moment she got up, and, conscious of an oppression in the atmosphere, took off her hat and pushed back the hair from her face.  She knew that Mercer was watching her, felt his eyes upon her, and wished intensely that he would speak, but he did not utter a word.  There seemed to her to be something stubborn in his silence, and it affected her strangely.

For a while she stood also silent, then suddenly with a little smile she looked across at him.

“Aren’t you going to show me everything?” she said.

“Not to-night,” he said.  “I will show you your bedroom if you are too tired to stay up any longer.”

She considered the matter for a few seconds, then quietly crossed the room to his side.  She laid a hand that trembled slightly on his shoulder.

“You have been very good to me,” she said.

He stiffened at her touch.

“You had better go to bed,” he said gruffly, and made as if he would rise.

But she checked him with a dignity all her own.

“Wait, please; I want to speak to you.”

“Not to thank me, I hope,” he said.

“No, not to thank you.”  She paused an instant, and seemed to hesitate.  “I—­I really want to ask you something,” she said at length.

He reached up and removed her hand from his shoulder.

“Well?” he questioned.

“Don’t hold me at arms’ length!” she pleaded gently.  “It makes things so difficult.”

“What is it you want to know?” he asked without relaxing.

She stood silent for a few seconds as if summoning all her courage.  Then at length, her voice very low, she spoke.

“When you said that you wanted me for your wife, did you mean that you—­loved me?”

He made an abrupt movement, and his fingers closed tightly upon her wrist.  For a moment or more he sat in tense silence, then he got to his feet.

“Why do you want to know?” he demanded harshly.

She stood before him with bent head.

“Because,” she said, and there was a piteous quiver in her voice, “I am lonely, and I have a very empty heart.  And—­and—­if you love me it will not frighten me to know it.  It will only—­make me—­glad.”

He put his hand on her shoulder.  “Do you know what you are saying?” he questioned.

“Yes,” she said under her breath.

“Are you sure?” he persisted.