“It wouldn’t surprise me now,” he began, in a rather nervous tone, “to hear of a man wanting to marry you when he had only known you two days. But it would surprise me,” he went on, with a little awkward laugh, “to hear that he had plucked up courage to ask you.” Before he had reached the last word, Chris was at the door. But Mr. Bradfield reached it nearly as soon as she. “No, no, I want to ask you a question before you go. Tell me, you’ve had offers of marriage made to you before now, haven’t you?” “Oh, yes, I have, but--but I don’t like them; I don’t like them at all. It’s very unpleasant, you know,” she went on rapidly, looking anywhere but at him, “to have to say things people don’t want to hear.” “Well, I suppose,” said Mr. Bradfield, who was not to be put off now that he had strung himself up to the required pitch, “the man will come some day to receive an answer which is not unpleasant?” Chris shook her head doubtfully. “Perhaps. I don’t know.” “You say you’ve had plenty of offers?” “I didn’t say that. I said I had had some.” “Any from men like--like me?” Chris glanced at him quickly, and shook her head with a little smile, half demure, half mischievous. She answered decidedly: “No, not at all like you. In the first place, they hadn’t any of them sixpence; in the second place, they were mostly boys, at least what I call boys,” she added, in a tone of patronage. This delighted Mr. Bradfield. Nobody could reproach him with being a boy. “And you didn’t care for any of them?” “Oh, yes, I did. For some of them. In a way.” “Well, do you think you could ever care for me--in a way, in any way?” Chris did not want to be unkind, but she shook her head decidedly. “Oh, Mr. Bradfield, what do you want to ask me for? I couldn’t help seeing you were going to, you know, and I’ve been trying to put off the e--I mean, I’ve been trying to stave it off. I wanted you to see it was no use, and that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to go away and be a hospital nurse. So it isn’t my fault, really.” “No, it’s my misfortune,” said Mr. Bradfield, shortly. “But I think you’re very silly.” “Yes, and my mother will think so too, that’s the worst of it,” said Chris, ruefully. “And don’t you think the opinion of two people like your mother and me is worth more than yours?” asked Mr. Bradfield, good-humouredly. Chris, though she was glad that he was not angry, did not like the way in which he took her refusal. For he treated it as a joke, as a matter of no consequence, and he stood very close to her, and stared at her, as she told her mother afterwards, in a way she did not like. This manner of receiving her answer piqued her, while it perhaps frightened her a little. “I think my opinion is worth the most,” she answered, with the colour rising in her cheeks, “for I can act upon mine, while you can’t act upon yours.” Mr. Bradfield drew back a little way, amused, surprised, and pleased at her spirit.