“It’s rather absurd to quote those ridiculous old proverbs,” she said at last, laughing affectedly, “but isn’t there one, or a fable, or something, about a duck whose chickens--no, a hen whose chickens, it would be, wouldn’t it?--would take to the water, and agitated her awfully because she couldn’t go after them? That’s exactly what I feel like, I assure you. And I look upon you as an exceptionally sensible water-bird who is also at home on the land--a kind of connecting link. Humiliating similes, aren’t they?” Loring smiled in answer to her laugh. But his tone as he answered her was rather grave. “Not by any means humiliating as far as I am concerned,” he said; “for you assume a certain amount of sympathy between yourself and me. May I tell you what a pleasure that idea gives me?” He spoke slowly and deliberately, and Mrs. Romayne started slightly. She glanced up at his face for an instant, unfurling her fan, and using it gently, as though the movement were an outlet for some sort of faint agitation. Loring was not looking at her, his eyes were fixed for the moment on the opposite wall, and his profile told her nothing. There was a hardly perceptible pause, and then he went on, with an admirable mixture of deference, admiration--the depth of which seemed the greater in that it was rather suggested than expressed--and the practical confidence of a man of the world. “Don’t think that I am underrating Julian,” he said, “or that my regard for him, personally, is anything but a very warm and sincere affair, when I tell you that it is a long time now since Julian has figured in my thoughts as anything but his mother’s son. Because he is his mother’s son there are very few things I would not do for him, very little trouble I would not take for him.” He hardly paused. Mrs. Romayne, rather, broke in on his speech with a high-pitched laugh. “That’s very kind and flattering,” she said, and there was something astonishingly hasty and nervous in the way she spoke. “I hope it doesn’t come upon you quite as a surprise,” answered Loring, with the slightest suggestion of a cynical smile unseen by Mrs. Romayne. “I hope it doesn’t need any words of mine to show you what I have tried to show you in more practical ways. You have honoured me with a great deal of confidence, and you have honoured me still further by putting it in my power to be of some slight service to you. Will you not give me still further powers in that direction? Will you not make our interests practically one by becoming my wife?” He turned to her as he finished, and in spite of the admirable composure and deference with which he had spoken, his eyes were very eager and elated, almost as though with anticipated triumph. Mrs. Romayne met his eyes, and stood for a moment gazing into them speechless and motionless, as though the blank astonishment written on every line of her face had absolutely paralysed her.