'Well, Cecil?'

'Look here, Eugenia.'

'What is it, Cecil?'

'Will you marry me?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Will you many me, Eugenia?'

'_What_?'

'You heard what I said. I asked you to marry me. Will you?'

'_Certainly_ not! Most decidedly not! How can you ask such a ridiculous
question!'

The lady who thus scornfully rejected a proposal was no longer young,
and had never been beautiful. In what exactly her attraction consisted
was perhaps a mystery to many of those who found themselves under the
charm. Her voice and smile were very agreeable, and she had a graceful
figure. If she looked nearly ten years younger than her age (which was
forty-four), this was in no way owing to any artificial aid, but to a
kind of brilliant vitality, not a bouncing mature liveliness, but a
vivid, intense, humorous interest in life that was and would always
remain absolutely fresh. She was naturalness itself, and seemed
unconscious or careless of her appearance. Nor did she have that
well-preserved air of so many modern women who seem younger than their