Are you in earnest when you admit
that it would be an admirable arrangement?"

"I am absolutely in earnest. Nothing could be more--more--"

"Let me speak. You are not in earnest. It is your good pleasure to take
a great many things in life in a joking spirit. Now, for instance, when
you sent me that bald, disgraceful, girlish essay, you played a
practical joke which a less patient man would never have forgiven.
To-night, when you talked that rubbish to that crowd of really clever
men and women, you played another practical joke, equally unseemly."

"I am not a society person, Mr. Franks. I cannot talk well in company.
You told me to talk, and I did the best I could."

"Your chatter was nearly brainless; the people who listened to you
to-night won't put up with that sort of thing much longer. It is
impossible with a mind of your order that you should really wish to talk
nonsense. But I am not going to scold you. I want to know if you will
marry me."

"If I will be your wife?" said Florence. "Why do you wish it?"

"I think it would be a suitable match."

"But do you love me?"

Franks paused when Florence asked him that direct question.

"I admire you very much," he said.

"That has nothing to do with it. Admiration is not enough to marry on.
Do you love me?"

"I believe I shall love you."

"May I ask you a very plain question?"

"What is that?"

"If I were not very clever, if I did not write those smart stories and
those clever papers, would you, just for myself, just for my face, and
my heart, and my nature, would you desire me as your wife?"

"That is scarcely a fair thing to ask, for I should never have met you
had you not been just what you are."

"Well, do you love me?" said Florence again.

"You are a very strange girl. I think on the whole I do love you. I
fully expect to love you very much when you are my wife."

"Did you ever love anybody else better than you love me?"

"I didn't expect, Miss Aylmer, to be subjected to this sort of
cross-questioning. There was once a girl--" A new note came into
Franks's voice, and for the first time those eyes of his were softened.

"She died," he said softly; "you can never be jealous of her: she is in
her grave. Had she lived we should have been married long ago. Don't let
us talk of her to-night. You and I can have a brilliant career. Will you
say 'yes'?"

"I cannot answer you to-night. You must give me time."

"Thank you; that is all I require. I