Bryce made no immediate response.  Instead, leaning almost carelessly and indifferently against the table at which he had been busy with drugs and bottles, he took a small file from his waistcoat pocket and began to polish his carefully cut nails.

“Yes?” he said, after a pause.  “Well?”

“In spite of it,” continued Ransford, “you’ve since addressed her again on the matter—­not merely once, but twice.”

Bryce put his file away, and thrusting his hands in his pockets, crossed his feet as he leaned back against the table —­his whole attitude suggesting, whether meaningly or not, that he was very much at his ease.

“There’s a great deal to be said on a point like this,” he observed.  “If a man wishes a certain young woman to become his wife, what right has any other man—­or the young woman herself, for that matter to say that he mustn’t express his desires to her?”

“None,” said Ransford, “provided he only does it once—­and takes the answer he gets as final.”

“I disagree with you entirely,” retorted Bryce.  “On the last particular, at any rate.  A man who considers any word of a woman’s as being final is a fool.  What a woman thinks on Monday she’s almost dead certain not to think on Tuesday.  The whole history of human relationship is on my side there.  It’s no opinion—­it’s a fact.”

Ransford stared at this frank remark, and Bryce went on, coolly and imperturbably, as if he had been discussing a medical problem.

“A man who takes a woman’s first answer as final,” he continued, “is, I repeat, a fool.  There are lots of reasons why a woman shouldn’t know her own mind at the first time of asking.  She may be too surprised.  She mayn’t be quite decided.  She may say one thing when she really means another.  That often happens.  She isn’t much better equipped at the second time of asking.  And there are women—­young ones—­who aren’t really certain of themselves at the third time.  All that’s common sense.”

“I’ll tell you what it is!” suddenly exclaimed Ransford, after remaining silent for a moment under this flow of philosophy.  “I’m not going to discuss theories and ideas.  I know one young woman, at any rate, who is certain of herself.  Miss Bewery does not feel any inclination to you—­now, nor at any time to be!  She’s told you so three times.  And—­you should take her answer and behave yourself accordingly!”

Bryce favoured his senior with a searching look.

“How does Miss Bewery know that she mayn’t be inclined to—­in the future?” he asked.  “She may come to regard me with favour.”

“No, she won’t!” declared Ransford.  “Better hear the truth, and be done with it.  She doesn’t like you—­and she doesn’t want to, either.  Why can’t you take your answer like a man?”

“What’s your conception of a man?” asked Bryce.

“That!—­and a good one,” exclaimed Ransford.

“May satisfy you—­but not me,” said Bryce.  “Mine’s different.  My conception of a man is of a being who’s got some perseverance.  You can get anything in this world—­anything! —­by pegging away for it.”