‘Of course you are in a hurry to get rid of me.’

‘Yes, I am.’

’A little while ago I improperly said that some suggestion of yours was nonsense and you rebuked me for my blunt incivility.  Might not I rebuke you now with equal justice?’

’Do so, if you will;—­but leave me.  I tell you, Conway, that in these matters you must either be guided by me, or you and I must cease to see each other.  It does not do that you should remain here with me longer than the time usually allowed for a morning call.  Clara has come and gone, and you also must go.  I am sorry to disturb you, for you seem to be so very comfortable in that chair.’

’I am comfortable—­and I can look at you.  Come;—­there can be no harm in saying that, if I say nothing else.  Well;—­there, now I am gone.’  Whereupon he got up from his arm-chair.

‘But you are not gone while you stand there.’

‘And you would really wish me to marry this girl?’

‘I do—­if you can love her.’

‘And what about her love?’

’You must win it, of course.  She is to be won, like any other woman. 
The fruit won’t fall into your mouth merely because you open your lips. 
You must climb the tree.’

‘Still climbing trees in the Hesperides,’ said Conway.  ’Love does that, you know; but it is hard to climb the trees without the love.  It seems to me that I have done my climbing—­have clomb as high as I knew how, and that the boughs are breaking with me, and that I am likely to get a fall.  Do you understand me?’

‘I would rather not understand you.’

’That is no answer to my question.  Do you understand that at this moment I am getting a fall which will break every bone in my skin and put any other climbing out of the question as far as I am concerned?  Do you understand that?’

‘No; I do not,’ said Mrs Broughton, in a tremulous voice.

’Then I’ll go and make love at once to Clara Van Siever.  There’s enough of pluck left in me to ask her to marry me, and I suppose I could manage to go through the ceremony if she accepted me.’

‘But I want you to love her,’ said Mrs Dobbs Broughton.

’I daresay I should love her well enough after a bit;—­that is, if she didn’t break my head or comb my hair.  I suppose there will be no objection to my saying that you sent me when I ask her?’

’Conway, you will of course not mention my name to her.  I have suggested to you a marriage which I think would tend to make you happy, and would give you a stability in life which you want.  It is perhaps better that I should be explicit at once.  As an unmarried man I cannot continue to know you.  You have said words of late which have driven me to this conclusion.  I have thought about it much—­too much perhaps, and I know that I am right.  Miss Van Siever has beauty and wealth and intellect, and I think that she would appreciate the love of such a man as you are.  Now go.’  And Mrs Dobbs Broughton, standing upright, pointed to the door.  Conway Dalrymple slowly took his Spanish hat from of the marble slab on which he had laid it, and left the room without saying a word.  The interview had been quite long enough, and there was nothing else which he knew how to say with effect.