"Because I am afraid, madame."

"Afraid!" scornfully--"afraid of a goosey girl of seventeen! I never
took you for a born idiot before, Guy Oleander."

"Thanks, my fair relative! But it is quite as disagreeable to be refused
by a 'goosey girl of seventeen' as by a young lady of seven-and-twenty.
Your age, my dear Blanche, is it not?"

"Never mind my age!" retorted Mrs. Walraven, sharply. "My age has
nothing to do with it. If you don't ask Mollie Dane to-night, Hugh
Ingelow or James Sardonyx will to-morrow, and the chances are ten to
one she accepts the first one who proposes."

"Indeed! Why?"

"Oh, for the sake of being engaged, being a heroine, being talked about.
She likes to be talked about, this bewildering fairy of yours. She isn't
in love with any of you; that I can see. It isn't in her shallow nature,
I suppose, to be in love with anybody but her own precious self."

"My dear Mrs. Walraven, are you not a little severe? Poor, blue-eyed
Mollie! And you think, if I speak to-night, I stand a chance?"

"A better chance than if you defer it. She may say 'yes' on the impulse
of the moment. If she does, trust me to make her keep her word."

"How?"

"That is my affair. Ah! what, was that?"