He sat bewildered, his passion dying at the hands of truth. Then he muttered, half to himself, feeling with a rush of shame how far he was from her, how little he really understood her innocence of evil, "Heaven knows why you should--I am a miserable beast--but----. Oh! I hope to God you would, my dear--I hope to God you would!" "Why?" she asked calmly, and he had no answer ready. So he harked back after a while to a lower level. "That is the most original reason for refusing a man I ever heard," he said whimsically. "Have you any others of the same sort?" She responded instantly to his mood. "Plenty!" she replied cheerfully. "To begin with, you are far too rich. I am only just beginning to realise how I should hate to have money--besides it is wrong, you know." "I don't know," he said dryly; "but it is quite easy to divest oneself of money. I never find the slightest difficulty in getting rid of it--so don't let that stand in your way." It was her turn to laugh--a soft, little laugh with a hint of reproof in it. "I don't expect you do. Ted is always saying you are reckless. Then there is grandfather; you know he doesn't like you half so much as he likes Ted----" "The deuce he doesn't!" assented Ned, his sudden pang of jealousy softened by his sense of the comic; "but you are surely not going to marry Ted in order to please your grandfather?" She looked at him disapprovingly, "I might marry some one worse; Ted is a dear." He felt exasperated. "Yes! he is an uncommonly good fellow; but--you don't happen to love him. And you do--at least I think you do"--he felt that certainty might overpower his self-control--"love me." She took no notice of this, but went on argumentatively. "Then I don't think I like marriage in your rank of life. With a poor man, and lots of work and trouble and children, it would be very interesting; but--look at Lady Smith-Biggs! I don't know what Sir Joseph is like, of course, but she looks as if she led a dull life." "Very!" assented Ned, back to smiles once more. "But I wouldn't, if I were you, take Lady Smith-Biggs' as a test case; there are plenty of marriages----" he paused, feeling it would be difficult with Aura's standard to adduce many examples; but then he was prepared to chuck everything, and go forth with sandal shoon into the wilderness if need be. Yes! she was right. It was hardly marriage that he wanted after all. So for a time they sat and looked out over the pale blue mists behind which the hills loomed large, seeming to lose themselves in the pale blue sky. "There must be something better," said the girl at last. "Oh, Ned! there is something better!" "Better than love," he echoed; "perhaps than some loves; not better than mine!" "Don't people always say that? Perhaps _he_ said it to Gwen----" "Child!" he said swiftly, "don't think of that--that was not love."