use, and his mind moved here and there
following her words, picturing her, white and flower-like against a
dark oak paneling, or old brocade, or hanging of faded tapestry.

Yes, it was a beautiful house. He had that to offer her, and money too.
There were women who would take him because of what he had to give. And
there was something else. What was it? Oh, a title. Not much of a
title. He couldn't believe she would be influenced by a trifle like
that. She was too perfect, too wonderful. A great many men with nobler
titles and more money must have asked her to marry them, or they would
ask her in future; for she was still very young. So far she had never
fallen in love. She had told him so.

"Not seriously in love," she had said, half laughing, and half in
earnest. "There was only my cousin. I adored him when I was child. But
I haven't seen him since I was sixteen. And now I'm twenty-one. He was
most awfully good looking, and I thought he was a knight and a hero.
Perhaps if he came back from India I should be disappointed in him."

Queer that the groping soul should hold an echo of these chance words
about India, though there was none for the name of the cousin, nor even
of the girl herself. This made the awakening man wonder again if the
girl had existed, or whether she lived only in his dreams. It was a
vaguely sweet, vaguely sad dream, which seemed to have ended before it
was fairly begun, with a very sorrowful ending which he couldn't quite
recall yet. He wished to go on dreaming, and to change the end if he
could.

The girl and her mother were visiting the ugly man at the old black and
white house. He--whoever he was--had to go away. He was begging the
girl to stop until he came back. "If I do come back," he added. "Your
mother is willing to stay if you are. It would make me happy to think
of you in my house, and if anything happens to me...."

"Oh, don't speak of such things!" she broke in. "It's terrible that you
must go."

This was very kind of her, because it was not reasonable that she could
really care much--such a girl--for such a man, who had never been able
to interest her, he felt. But she looked at him, looked up mistily with
her dear eyes of smoke-blue. There was some message in them, behind a
glaze of tears.

Drowned in those eyes, he heard himself stammering out things he had
not thought that he would ever dare to say. "If you could marry me ...
I don't suppose you could ... but if...."

Her