er,"
added the Major, with a sober smile.

"If you don't mean religion," said Gertrude, "I suppose you mean love.
That's a very different thing."

"Yes, a very different thing; so I've always thought, and so I'm glad to
hear you say. Some people, you know, mix them up in the most
extraordinary fashion. I don't fancy myself an especially religious man;
in fact, I believe I'm rather otherwise. It's my nature. Half mankind
are born so, or I suppose the affairs of this world wouldn't move. But I
believe I'm a good lover, Miss Whittaker."

"I hope for your own sake you are, Major Luttrel."

"Thank you. Do you think now you could entertain the idea for the sake
of any one else?"

Gertrude neither dropped her eyes, nor shrugged her shoulders, nor
blushed. If anything, indeed, she turned somewhat paler than before, as
she sustained her companion's gaze, and prepared to answer him as
directly as she might.

"If I loved you, Major Luttrel," she said, "I should value the idea for
my own sake."

The Major, too, blanched a little. "I put my question conditionally," he
answered, "and I have got, as I deserved, a conditional reply. I will
speak plainly, then, Miss Whittaker. _Do_ you value the fact for your
own sake? It would be plainer still to say, Do you love me? but I
confess I'm not brave enough for that. I will say, Can you? or I will
even content myself with putting it in the conditional again, and asking
you if you could; although, after all, I hardly know what the _if_
understood can reasonably refer to. I'm not such a fool as to ask of any
woman--least of all of you--to love me contingently. You can only answer
for the present, and say yes or no. I shouldn't trouble you to say
either, if I didn't conceive that I had given you time to make up your
mind. It doesn't take forever to know James Luttrel. I'm not one of the
great unfathomable ones. We've seen each other more or less intimately
for a good many weeks; and as I'm conscious, Miss Whittaker, of having
shown you my best, I take for granted that if you don't fancy me now,
you won't a month hence, when you shall have seen my faults. Yes, Miss
Whittaker, I can solemnly say," continued the Major, with genuine
feeling, "I have shown you my best, as every man is in honor bound to
do who approaches a woman with those predispositions with which I have
approached you. I have striven hard to please you,"--and he paused. "I
can only say, I hope I have succeeded."

"I sho