r to much astonished to be angry.

"But last night!" she presently echoed, in candid surprise. "Why, last
night you didn't know I was poor!"

He wagged a protesting forefinger. "That made no earthly difference,"
he assured her. "Of course, it was the money--and in some degree the
moon--that induced me to make love to you. I acted on the impulse of
the moment; just for an instant, the novelty of doing a perfectly
sensible thing--and marrying money is universally conceded to come
under that head--appealed to me. So I did it. But all the time I was
in love with Kathleen Saumarez. Why, the moment I left you, I began to
realise that not even you--and you are quite the most fascinating and
generally adorable woman I ever knew, Margaret--I began to realise, I
say, that not even you could ever make me forget that fact. And I
was very properly miserable. It is extremely queer," Mr. Kennaston
continued, after an interval of meditation, "but falling in love
appears to be the one utterly inexplicable, utterly reasonless thing
one ever does in one's life. You can usually think of some more or
less plausible palliation for embezzlement, say, or for robbing a
cathedral or even for committing suicide--but no man can ever explain
how he happened to fall in love. He simply did it."

Margaret nodded sagely. She knew.

"Now you," Mr. Kennaston was pleased to say, "are infinitely more
beautiful, younger, more clever, and in every way more attractive than
Kathleen. I recognise these things clearly, but it does not appear,
somehow, to alter the fact that I am in love with her. I think I have
been in love with her all my life. We were boy and girl together,
Margaret, and--and I give you my word," Kennaston cried, with his
boyish flush, "I worship her! I simply cannot explain the perfectly
unreasonable way in which I worship her!"

He was sincere. He loved Kathleen Saumarez as much as he was capable
of loving any one--almost as much as he loved to dilate on his own
peculiarities and emotions.

Margaret's gaze was intent upon him. "Yet," she marvelled, "you made
love to me very tropically."

With unconcealed pride, Mr. Kennaston assented. "Didn't I?" he said.
"I was in rather good form last night, I thought."

"And you were actually prepared to marry me?" she asked--"even after
you knew I was poor?"

"I couldn't very well back out," he submitted, and then cocked
his head on one side. "You see," he added, whimsically, "I was
sufficien