“Afraid of her?  Did you come out—­may I ask—­determined to talk nonsense?”

“I came out—­never mind!  I am afraid of her.  She hates me.  I think”—­he felt a shiver in the air—­will do me harm if she can.”

“No one shall do you harm,” said Ashe, his tone changing, “if you will only trust yourself—­”

She laughed merrily.

“To you?  Oh! you’d soon throw it up.”

“Try me!” he said, approaching her.  “Lady Kitty, I have something to say to you.”

Suddenly she shrank away from him.  He could not see her face, and had nothing to guide him.

“I haven’t yet known you three weeks,” he said, over-mastered by something passionate and profound.  “I don’t know what you will say—­whether you can put up with me.  But I know my own mind—­I shall not change.  I—­I love you.  I ask you to marry me.”

A silence.  The night seemed to have grown darker.  Then a small hand seized his, and two soft lips pressed themselves upon it.  He tried to capture her, but she evaded him.

“You—­you really and actually—­want to marry me?”

“I do, Kitty, with all my heart.”

“You remember about my mother—­about Alice?”

“I remember everything.  We would face it together.”

“And—­you know what I told you about my bad temper?”

“Some nonsense, wasn’t it?  But I should be bored by the domestic dove.  I want the hawk, Kitty, with its quick wings and its daring bright eyes.”

She broke from him with a cry.

“You must listen.  I have—­a wicked, odious, ungovernable temper.  I should make you miserable.”

“Not at all,” said Ashe.  “I should take it very calmly.  I am made that way.”

“And then—­I don’t know how to put it—­but I have fancies—­overpowering fancies—­and I must follow them.  I have one now for Geoffrey Cliffe.”

Ashe laughed.

“Oh, that won’t last.”

“Then some other will come after it.  And I can’t help it.  It is my head”—­she tapped her forehead lightly—­“that seems on fire.”

Ashe at last slipped his arm round her.

“But it is your heart—­you will give me.”

She pushed him away from her and held him at arm’s-length.

“You are very rich, aren’t you?” she said, in a muffled voice.

“I am well off.  I can give you all the pretty things you want.”

“And some day you will be Lord Tranmore?”

“Yes, when my poor father dies,” he said, sighing.  He felt her fingers caress his hand again.  It was a spirit touch, light and tender.

“And every one says you are so clever—­you have such prospects.  Perhaps you will be Prime Minister.”

“Well, there’s no saying,” he threw out, laughing—­“if you’ll come and help.”

He heard a sob.

“Help!  I should be the ruin of you.  I should spoil everything.  You don’t know the mischief I can do.  And I can’t help it, it’s in my blood.”