"You mean it would make it easier for you to manage my affairs?" said Miss Gaymer helpfully. "Yes," said Hughie, feeling that he was getting on. "Any more reasons?" inquired Miss Gaymer, with a docile appearance of intelligent interest. Hughie made an immense effort, and grasped his chair until the veins stood out on his hands. _Parturiunt montes_--at last. "Well, Joey," he said at last, "we have always been pals, and all that. I mean, we have known each other for a long time now, haven't we? You even offered to marry me once,"--he laughed nervously,--"when you were a kiddie. Do you remember? It seems to me we should get on first-rate together--eh? What's your opinion?" _Ridiculus mus!_ Miss Gaymer sat up in her chair, and turned upon the unfortunate young man beside her. "And you _dare_," she said, "to come to a girl like me with a proposal like that! You sit there and tell me that you have taken me over from Uncle Jimmy like a--like a parcel from a porter, and that you have been saddled with my money and affairs, so perhaps it would be simplest and save trouble if you married me! _Me!_" she repeated, "who have to keep men off with a stick!" The last sentence was a mistake. It was an inartistic and egotistical climax to a perfectly justifiable tirade. Joan realised the fact the moment she had uttered the words, but poor Hughie was too much occupied in retiring into his shell to notice anything. He had laid bare his heart, in his own fashion, for the first time in his life, and this was the result. Never again! He burned inwardly, like a child who has been laughed at by grown-ups. "I'm sorry," he said stiffly. "My mistake! Shan't occur again." Joey's ear was caught by the tone of his voice, and conscience gave her a twinge. She patted Hughie's arm in a friendly way. "Old boy," she said, suddenly contrite, "I've made you angry, and I've hurt you. I'm sowwy--sorry, I mean! (I'm a bit upset, you see)," she said, smiling disarmingly. "But I _can't_ marry you, really. I couldn't _bear_ to be married at all at present. It seems so--so unnecessary. I don't see what I should get out of it. That's a selfish thing to say, I suppose, but I'll try to explain a girl's point of view to you. You're a terrible child in some respects, so I'll do it quite simply." She stroked his sleeve in a motherly fashion, and continued:-- "Years ago, my dear, the only way a girl could get her freedom or any male society was by marrying. Now, she gets as much of both as she wants, and if she marries she loses all the freedom and most of the male society. So why should she marry at all?" Hughie kept silence before this poser. He felt incapable of plunging into the depths of an argument: one has to keep to the surface in discussing these matters with a maiden of twenty.