'Give me,' he said, 'the right to speak to you as your dearest friend. You cannot possibly mistake the attentions that I have paid to you for the last few weeks. They must have indicated to you--they were, indeed, deliberately designed to indicate--a preference--deepening into a passion----' 'I think you had better stop at once, Mr. Feilding.' There are many men who honestly believe that they are irresistible. It seems incredible, but it is really true. It is the consciousness of masculine superiority carried to an extreme. They think that they have only to repeat the conventional words in the conventional manner for the woman to be subjugated. They come: they conquer. Now, this man, who plainly saw that he was to a certain extent--he did not know how far--detected, actually imagined that the woman who had detected him in a gigantic fraud one day would accept his proffered hand and heart the very next day! There are no bounds, you see, to personal vanity. Besides, for this man, if it was necessary that he should appear as the accepted suitor of a rich girl, it was doubly necessary that the girl should be the one woman in the world who could do mischief. He was anxious to discover how much she knew. But of his wooing he had no anxiety at all. He should speak: she would yield: she could do nothing else. 'Permit me,' he replied blandly, 'to go on. I am, as you know, a leader in the world of Art. I am known as a painter, a poet, and a writer of fiction. I have other ambitions still.' 'Doubtless you will succeed in these as you have succeeded in those three Arts.' 'Thank you.' He really did not see the meaning of her words. 'I take your words as of happy augury. Armorel----' 'No, Sir! Not my Christian name, if you please.' 'Give me the right to call you by your Christian name.' 'You are asking me to marry you. Is that what you mean?' 'It is nothing less.' 'Really! When I tell you, Mr. Feilding, that I know you--that I know you--it will be plain to you that the thing is absolutely impossible.' 'To know me,' he replied, showing no outward emotion, 'should make it more than possible. What could I wish better than to be known to you?' She looked him full in the face. He neither dropped his eyes nor changed colour. 'What could be better for me?' he repeated. 'What could I hope for better than to be known?' 'Oh! This man is truly wonderful!' she cried. 'Must I tell you what I know?' 'It would be better, perhaps. You look as if you knew something to my--actually--if I may say so--actually to my discredit!' Armorel gasped. His impudence was colossal.