staff? Isn't it pleasant?"

"Pleasant;--pleasant? Oh, it could be so pleasant."

"But who is the lady? Perhaps you don't mean to tell me that."

"You mean to say you don't know?"

"Haven't the least idea in life."

"Let me tell you then that it could only be one person. It never was
but one person. It never could have been but one person. It is you."
Then he put his hand well on his heart.

"Me!" said Miss Boncassen, choosing to be ungrammatical in order that
he might be more absurd.

"Of course it is you. Do you think that I should have brought you all
the way up here to tell you that I was in love with anybody else?"

"I thought I was brought to see Mrs. de Somebody, and the view."

"Not at all," said Dolly emphatically.

"Then you have deceived me."

"I will never deceive you. Only say that you will love me, and I will
be as true to you as the North Pole."

"Is that true to me?"

"You know what I mean."

"But if I don't love you?"

"Yes, you do!"

"Do I?"

"I beg your pardon," said Dolly. "I didn't mean to say that. Of
course a man shouldn't make sure of a thing."

"Not in this case, Mr. Longstaff; because really I entertain no such
feeling."

"But you can if you please. Just let me tell you who I am."

"That will do no good whatever, Mr. Longstaff."

"Let me tell you at any rate. I have a very good income of my own as
it is."

"Money can have nothing to do with it."

"But I want you to know that I can afford it. You might perhaps have
thought that I wanted your money."

"I will attribute nothing evil to you, Mr. Longstaff. Only it is
quite out of the question that I should--respond as I suppose you
wish me to; and therefore, pray, do not say anything further."

She went to the head of the little steps but he interrupted her. "You
ought to hear me," he said.

"I have heard you."

"I can give you as good a position as any man without a title in
England."

"Mr. Longstaff, I rather fancy that wherever I may be I can make a
position for myself. At any rate I shall not marry with the view of
getting one. If my husband were an English Duke I should think myself
nothing, unless I was something as Isabel Boncassen."

When she said this she did not bethink herself that Lord Silverbridge
would in the course of nature become an English Duke. But the
allusion to an English Duke told intensely on Dolly, who had
suspected that he had a noble rival. "English Dukes aren't so easily
got," he s