breath of a second, Sally's eyes sought Janet's face
across the table. Janet had heard and, with her eyes, she urged Sally
to accept. This all passed unknown to Mr. Arthur. He thought Sally
was hesitating--the moments thumped in his heart.

"I don't mind for a little while," she said.

He rose from the table, conscious of victory. "I'll just go and get
on my boots," he said, and he slipped away.

Sally mounted to her room followed by Janet.

"He's going to propose," said Miss Hallard.

"He's not," retorted Sally.

"I'm perfectly certain he is. He's been excited about something all
the evening. He's come into some money or something. He talked
to-night as if he could buy up all the art treasures in the kingdom."

"You think he's going to buy me up?"

"He's going to make his offer. What'll you do?"

"Well--what can I do? Would you marry him?"

"That's not the question. There's no chance of him asking me. You
can't speculate on whether you'll marry a man until he asks you--your
mind is biassed before then."

"I don't believe you'd marry any one," said Sally.

"It's quite probable," she replied laconically.

Sally began to take off her hat again. "I'm not going out with him,"
she said. "I shall hate it."

"Don't be foolish--put on that hat, and see what it's like to be
proposed to by an earnest young gentleman on the banks of a river,
at nine o'clock in the evening. Go on--don't be foolish, Sally. It
does a woman good to be proposed to--teaches her manners--go on. You
may like him--you don't know."

Sally obeyed reluctantly. In the heart of her was a dread of it; in
her mind, the tardy admission that she was doing her duty,
sacrificing at the altar upon which every woman at some time or other
is compelled to make her offering.

In the little linoleum'd passage, known as the hall, Mr. Arthur was
waiting for her. He had exchanged his felt slippers for a pair of
boots; round his neck he had wrapped an ugly muffler and a cap was
perched jauntily on his head. The impression that he gave Sally, of
being confident of his success, stung her for a moment to resentment.
She determined to refuse him. But that mood was only momentary. When
the door had closed behind them and they had begun to walk along the
paved river path, the impression and its accompanying decision
vanished.

Sally was a romantic--that cannot be denied. She could talk
reverently about love in the abstract. In her mind, it was not a
condition