my becoming yours as the consequence of
my having dismissed another.'

'Not on becoming mine, but on listening to me.'

'Your argument would be reasonable enough had I led you to believe I
would listen to you--and ultimately accept you; but that I have not
done. I see now that a woman who gives a man an answer one shade less
peremptory than a harsh negative may be carried beyond her intentions,
and out of her own power before she knows it.'

'Chide me if you will; I don't care!'

She looked steadfastly at him with a little mischief in her eyes. 'You
DO care,' she said.

'Then why don't you listen to me? I would not persevere for a moment
longer if it were against the wishes of your family. Your uncle says it
would give him pleasure to see you accept me.'

'Does he say why?' she asked thoughtfully.

'Yes; he takes, of course, a practical view of the matter; he thinks it
commends itself so to reason and common sense that the owner of Stancy
Castle should become a member of the De Stancy family.'

'Yes, that's the horrid plague of it,' she said, with a nonchalance
which seemed to contradict her words. 'It is so dreadfully reasonable
that we should marry. I wish it wasn't!'

'Well, you are younger than I, and perhaps that's a natural wish. But to
me it seems a felicitous combination not often met with. I confess that
your interest in our family before you knew me lent a stability to my
hopes that otherwise they would not have had.'

'My interest in the De Stancys has not been a personal interest except
in the case of your sister,' she returned. 'It has been an historical
interest only; and is not at all increased by your existence.'

'And perhaps it is not diminished?'

'No, I am not aware that it is diminished,' she murmured, as she
observed the gliding shore.

'Well, you will allow me to say this, since I say it without reference
to your personality or to mine--that the Power and De Stancy families
are the complements to each other; and that, abstractedly, they call
earnestly to one another: "How neat and fit a thing for us to join
hands!"'

Paula, who was not prudish when a direct appeal was made to her common
sense, answered with ready candour: 'Yes, from the point of view of
domestic politics, that undoubtedly is the case. But I hope I am not so
calculating as to risk happiness in order to round off a social idea.'

'I hope not; or that I am either. Still the social idea exists, and my
increased yea