“What!  Don’t you like Mr. Furnival either?”

Norah shook her head and said “No” emphatically.

“But he is handsome, Norah.  I call him undoubtedly a handsome man.  And they tell me that the girls are falling in love with him.”

Norah laughed, and said that, if Mr. Dale had been correctly informed, she was sorry for the taste of the girls.

“Then you don’t admire his looks, Norah?”

“It rather surprises me, because I should have thought he was just the sort of person to attract and fascinate the other sex—­a bachelor too, without ties, able to take advantage of any success in that line that came his way.  I mean, of course, by offering marriage to the party who fancied him.”

Norah said again that she thought nothing of Mr. Furnival’s alleged handsomeness.  She considered him a namby-pamby.

“You are young still.  Perhaps I oughtn’t to talk like this—­putting nonsense in your head.  But it’ll come there sure enough of its own accord.  Your turn will come.  You’ll fall in love one day, Norah.”

Norah, putting the big account-books back on the shelf over the desk, did not answer.

“You’ve never fallen in love yet, have you?”

Norah would not answer.

“Ah, well.”  Dale got up from his chair, and stretched himself.  “But you’ll have to marry some day, you know.”

“Oh, no, I shan’t.”

“Oh, yes, my dear, you will.  That’s a thing there’s no harm for girls to think of, because it’s what they’ve got to prepare themselves for.”  And Dale delivered a serious little homily on the duties and pleasures of wedlock, and concluded by telling Norah that when she had chosen an honest proper sort of young fellow, neither himself nor Mrs. Dale would stand in the way of her future happiness.  “Yes, my dear, you’ll leave us then; and we shall miss you greatly—­both of us will miss you very greatly, but we shan’t either of us consider that.  And you mustn’t consider it yourself.  It’s nature—­quite proper and correct that under those circumstances you should leave us.”

“Never,” said Norah.  “Never—­unless you send me away;” and stooping her head on her arms, she began to cry.

“Oh, my dear, don’t cry,” said Dale bruskly.  “What in the name of reason is there to cry about?”

“Then say you won’t send me away,” sobbed Norah.  “Promise me you won’t do that.”

“Of course I won’t,” said Dale, in the same brusk tone.  “That is, unless I’m morally certain that—­”

“No, no—­never.”

“Oh, don’t be silly.  Dry your eyes, and be sensible;” and Dale, plunging his hands in his pockets, hurried out of the office.