“You’re not afraid of being married against your will, then?” At this rather ironically put question, the very soul of pretty Chris seemed to flash through her eyes. “No, indeed I’m not.” Then Mr. Bradfield, who had lost his nervousness, and who went about his wooing with a will now that he had fairly started, changed his tone. In a voice which had become surprisingly tender--or which perhaps only sounded tender because he did not shout so much as usual--he said---- “Wouldn’t you like to make a man happy, little Chris?” She was too womanly to hear this speech quite unmoved, even from a man she did not care about. So she evaded it. “I don’t think a woman can make a man happy,” she said. “I don’t think every woman could. But I’m sure you could; at least, you could make _me_ happy.” “Well, if I really have the power of giving happiness, which I very much doubt,” said Chris, laughing, “I think I ought to exercise it on some man who hasn’t so many sources of happiness as you have already, Mr. Bradfield.” “Sources of happiness,” echoed he scoffingly. “And, pray, what are they?” “You have your collection, your curiosities, your pictures, your first editions!” “All sources of torment, not of happiness. I can honestly say that I suffer more if I find that old General Wadham has a duplicate of anything I buy, than I should rejoice over the discovery of a new and genuine Raphael. I buy, I collect, to pass away the time.” “But you can do so much good, and give so much pleasure. Doesn’t that make you happy?” “Not a bit.” “Yet you are very kind-hearted. You give away a great deal in charity,” objected Chris, incredulously. “It makes you happy to help the poor and needy,” she ended, feeling that she was talking rather like a tract. “No, it doesn’t. I help ’em to get rid of ’em!” rejoined Mr. Bradfield, tartly. “I hate the poor and needy. I’ve been poor and needy myself, and,” he wound up with a sudden viciousness in his tone, “I know just how they feel towards me, because I remember how I used to feel towards anyone better off than myself.” Chris was almost frightened. For Mr. Bradfield’s private feelings had, for the moment, run away with him, and he showed the girl, unconsciously, into a dark corner of his mind, which it would have been better for him to have kept hidden while his wooing lasted. She felt as if she had overheard something not intended for her ear, and it was almost with the manner of an eavesdropper who has been caught in the act, that she moved towards the door. She had long since lost the position she had taken up by it, having been followed up by her unwanted admirer, until she was back again by the fireplace. He seemed to become aware of her intention to escape quite suddenly, but he had apparently lost the wish to detain her. As she opened the door, he only called out---- “Good-bye, Miss Christina. But mind, I shall make you give me another answer by-and-by.” Chris pretended not to hear. CHAPTER XV.