Good dinners, served in the most refined style, had lost their charm for the visitors, who seemed perfectly satisfied, Elbraham's face shining like a sun when he smiled blandly at his _vis-a-vis_, whose deeply-lined, aristocratic countenance wore an aspect of pleasant satisfaction as he gazed back at the millionaire. "I say, Moorpark, they look well, don't they?" said Elbraham. "They do, indeed," assented Lord Henry, smiling. "Make some of them stare on the happy day, I think." "They are certainly very, very beautiful women," replied Lord Henry, smiling and thoughtful. "Eh--what? Oh, ah--yes: coffee. Thanks; I'll take coffee." This to Joseph, who brought in a black mixture with some thin hot milk and brown sugar to match. Lord Henry also took a cup, but it was observable that neither gentleman got much farther than a couple of spoonfuls. "Well," said Elbraham suddenly, stretching out his hairy paws, and examining their fronts and backs, "it's of no use our sitting here drinking wine, is it?" "Certainly not," said Lord Henry, who had merely sipped the very thin champagne at dinner and taken nothing since. So the gentlemen adjourned to the drawing-room, where certain conversations took place before they left, the effect of which was to send Mr Elbraham back to town highly elate, and Lord Henry to his old bachelor home a sadder, if not a wiser, man. He had found his opportunity, or, rather, it had been made for him, and he had plainly asked Marie to be his wife. "I know I ask you to make a sacrifice," he said--"you so youthful and beautiful, while I am old, and not possessed of the attraction a young man might have in your eyes; but if you will be my wife, nothing that wealth and position can give shall be wanting to make yours a happy home." He thought Marie had never looked so beautiful before, as with flushed cheeks she essayed to speak, and, smiling as he took her soft, white hand in his, he asked her to be calm and patient with him. "I dread your refusal," he said; "and yet, old as I am, there is no selfishness in my love. I wish to see you happy, my child--I wish to make you happy." "She has accepted him," thought Marie; and her heart began to beat with painful violence, for, Clotilde away, who could say that Marcus Glen would not come to her for sympathy, and at last ask her love. She felt that she could not accept Lord Henry's proposal, and she turned her face towards him in an appealing way. "You look troubled, my child," he said tenderly. "I want you to turn to me as you would to one who has your happiness thoroughly at heart. I want to win your love." "My--my aunts know that you ask me this, Lord Henry?" she faltered.