‘But why did you do it?’ she asked him.  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

’I didn’t think it fair to put you under any obligation to me, and I wanted you to feel quite free.’

She cried.  She couldn’t help it.

‘Don’t be so silly,’ he laughed.  ’You own me nothing at all.  I’ve done very little for you, and what I have done has given me a great deal of pleasure.’

‘I don’t know how I can ever repay you.’

‘Oh, don’t say that,’ he cried.  ’It makes it so much harder for me to say what I want to.’

She looked at him quickly and reddened.  Her deep blue eyes were veiled with tears.

‘Don’t you know that I’d do anything in the world for you?’ she cried.

’I don’t want you to be grateful to me, because I was hoping—­I might ask you to marry me some day.’

Margaret laughed charmingly as she held out her hands.

’You must know that I’ve been wanting you to do that ever since I was ten.’

She was quite willing to give up her idea of Paris and be married without delay, but Arthur pressed her not to change her plans.  At first Margaret vowed it was impossible to go, for she knew now that she had no money, and she could not let her lover pay.

‘But what does it matter?’ he said.  ’It’ll give me such pleasure to go on with the small allowance I’ve been making you.  After all, I’m pretty well-to-do.  My father left me a moderate income, and I’m making a good deal already by operating.’

’Yes, but it’s different now.  I didn’t know before.  I thought I was spending my own money.’

’If I died tomorrow, every penny I have would be yours.  We shall be married in two years, and we’ve known one another much too long to change our minds.  I think that our lives are quite irrevocably united.’

Margaret wished very much to spend this time in Paris, and Arthur had made up his mind that in fairness to her they could not marry till she was nineteen.  She consulted Susie Boyd, whose common sense prevented her from paying much heed to romantic notions of false delicacy.

’My dear, you’d take his money without scruple if you’d signed your names in a church vestry, and as there’s not the least doubt that you’ll marry, I don’t see why you shouldn’t now.  Besides, you’ve got nothing whatever to live on, and you’re equally unfitted to be a governess or a typewriter.  So it’s Hobson’s choice, and you’d better put your exquisite sentiments in your pocket.’

Miss Boyd, by one accident after another, had never seen Arthur, but she had heard so much that she looked upon him already as an old friend.  She admired him for his talent and strength of character as much as for his loving tenderness to Margaret.  She had seen portraits of him, but Margaret said he did not photograph well.  She had asked if he was good-looking.

‘No, I don’t think he is,’ answered Margaret, ‘but he’s very paintable.’