rought me here for?" inquired Dolly,
feeling vaguely aggrieved.

Robin surveyed her rather wistfully, and then smiled in a disarming
fashion.

"That was weakness," he said, "sheer weakness. But I think it was
pardonable. I saw, now that your sister was married, that the days of
your old irresponsible flirtations were over, and that you would
henceforth regard proposals of marriage as much more serious things than
hitherto. Consequently you might marry any day, without ever knowing
that a little later on you would have received an offer from me. I have
brought you here, then, to tell you that I am a prospective candidate,
but that I do not feel qualified to put down my name at present. Ideally
speaking, I ought to have kept silence until the moment when I
considered that I was ready for you; but--well, there are limits to
self-repression, and I have allowed myself this one little outbreak. All
I ask, then, is that in considering other offers you will bear somewhere
in the back of your mind the remembrance that you will, if you desire
it, one day have the refusal of me. I admit that the possibility of your
being influenced by the recollection is very remote, but I am going to
leave nothing undone that _can_ be done to get you."

"By this time," Dolly continues elegantly, "I was getting considerably
flummoxed. The whole business was very absurd and uncomfortable, but I
couldn't help feeling rather complimented at the way he evidently
regarded me--as a sort of little tin goddess on a pedestal out of
reach, being asked to be so good as to stand still a moment while
Robin went to hunt for the steps--and I also felt a little bit afraid
of him. He was so quiet and determined over it all. He seemed to have
it all mapped out in a kind of time-table inside him. However, I
pulled myself together and decided to contribute my share to the
conversation. I hadn't had much of a look in, so far.

"So I settled down to talk to him like a mother. I began by saying
that I was very much obliged and honoured, and all that, but that he
had better put the idea out of his head once and for all. I liked him
very much, and had always regarded him as a great friend, quite one of
the family--you know the sort of stuff--but----

"It was no good. He held up his hand like a policeman at a crossing,
and said--

"'Please say nothing. I have asked you no question of any kind, so no
answer is required. All that