"Miss Gunn, do you really wish me to understand that you reject me?"

"Not at all," said Hetty, gayly. "I wish you to understand that I
haven't permitted you to offer yourself. I have simply assured you that
you are mistaken: you'll see it for yourself as soon as we get home. Do
you suppose I shouldn't know if you were really in love with me?"

"I didn't know it myself till a week ago," replied Dr. Eben: "I did not
understand myself. I never loved any woman before."

"And no man ever asked me to marry him before," answered the honest
Hetty, like a child, and with an amused tone in her voice. "It is very
odd, isn't it?"

Dr. Eben was confounded. In spite of himself, he felt the contagion of
Hetty's merry and unsentimental view of the situation; and it was with
a trace of obstinacy rather than of a lover's pain in his tones that he
continued:

"But, Miss Gunn, indeed you must not make light of this matter in this
way. It is not treating me fairly. With all the love of a man's heart I
love you, and have asked you to be my wife: are you sure that you could
not love me?"

"I don't really think I could," said Hetty; "but I shall not try,
because I am sure you are mistaken. I am too old to be married, for one
thing: I shall be thirty-seven in the fall. That's reason enough, if
there were no other. A man can't fall in love with a woman after she's
as old as that."