ing hotly
and quickly, but with lowered eyes.

"What! To offer to marry a person whom one does not--as yet--pretend to
love?"

Rachel vouchsafed no reply.

"Whom one only--but tremendously--admires?"

Rachel felt bound to answer him, for at least there was no insult in
his tone. She raised her candid eyes, a sweet brown blush upon her face.

"Yes," she said, "I think there is absolutely no excuse for a proposal
of marriage, if it is not founded upon love and nothing else!"

"Or its pretence and nothing else," amended Steel, with a bow and a
smile of some severity. "That is a hard saying," he went on, resuming
his chair, and wheeling it even nearer to Rachel's than it had been
before; "moreover," he added, "since I have already insulted you, let me
tell you that it is an exceedingly commonplace saying, into the bargain.
It depends, you must admit, upon the commonplace conception of marriage;
and before we go any further I should like to give you my own
conception, not of the institution, but of the particular marriage which
I have in view."

So he had it in view! It was not an inspiration, but already quite a
prospect! Rachel made an acid little note of this; but there was no
acidity in her permission to him to proceed; her turn was coming last.

"The marriage that I propose to you," continued Steel, "is simply the
most convenient form of friendship of which I can think. I want to be
your friend; indeed, that much I mean to be, if necessary, in spite of
you. I was interested in your case, so I came up to hear your trial. I
was more interested in your trial, but most interested of all in
yourself. There, indeed, the word is too weak; but I will not vex your
spirit with a stronger. My attraction you know; my determination you
know; even the low wiles to which your pride reduced me, even my dodging
and dogging, have been quite openly admitted to you on the first
reasonable opportunity. All this business of the shipwrecked daughter
was of course a crude device enough; but I had very little time to
think, and my first care was that you should not be recognized here or
elsewhere in my society. That was essential, if there was the slightest
chance of your even listening to my proposition, as indeed you are doing
now. Last night I told you nothing, because that's always easier than
telling only a little; moreover, you were so distraught that you would
possibly have gone right away without benefiting even to the slight