"He's not," retorted Sally.

"I'm perfectly certain he is. He's been excited about something all
the evening. He's come into some money or something. He talked
to-night as if he could buy up all the art treasures in the kingdom."

"You think he's going to buy me up?"

"He's going to make his offer. What'll you do?"

"Well--what can I do? Would you marry him?"

"That's not the question. There's no chance of him asking me. You
can't speculate on whether you'll marry a man until he asks you--your
mind is biassed before then."

"I don't believe you'd marry any one," said Sally.

"It's quite probable," she replied laconically.

Sally began to take off her hat again. "I'm not going out with him,"
she said. "I shall hate it."

"Don't be foolish--put on that hat, and see what it's like to be
proposed to by an earnest young gentleman on the banks of a river,
at nine o'clock in the evening. Go on--don't be foolish, Sally. It
does a woman good to be proposed to--teaches her manners--go on. You
may like him--you don't know."

Sally obeyed reluctantly. In the heart of her was a dread of it; in