"Baba--and--I," she whispered. "Oh! perhaps I ought not to have come, but there seemed no other way to show you--what a dreadful mistake you were going to make, and--Rupert says I am always a creature of impulse," she ended with a little laugh. "I came--on--impulse, because--because I had to come." She came closer to his side, and laid one of her hands upon his coat sleeve, her blue eyes looking into his, with the wistful, appealing eagerness of a child's eyes. "I--don't know what Cousin Arthur would say--if he knew," she ended inconsequently. "But--I can't quite understand even now," Fergusson said, with a not very successful effort to speak quietly. "I--do not think I can be of any use to--you--and little Baba. There are plenty of other doctors who----" "Plenty of other _doctors_," she answered, a quiver in her voice; "but only one you--and--and are all men always so dense? Please understand, Baba--and I--ask you--to stay. We--are very bold--and brazen--Baba and I!" She did not look up at him now. She did not see the look of radiant joy that swept across his face, she only felt his arms go suddenly round her, she only realised what a relief it was to hide her burning cheeks against his rough coat, whilst he bent his head to hers, and murmured passionate inarticulate little words, that would not frame themselves into sentences, and yet seemed to flood her world with happiness. "I can't understand it," he said presently, putting his hand softly under her chin and lifting her face, so that he could look deep into her eyes; "you can't mean--that you--would stoop--to me?" "I didn't know how to make you understand without telling you in plain English that I--that you----" She broke off again, her eyes dropping before the look in his, the colour deepening in her cheeks. "That you--and Baba--want me?" he quoted softly. "Yes; we don't think we can do without you, Baba and I. We can't let you go to the Far West, or--anywhere very far away from us. Only----" "Only?" he whispered, his lips close to hers. "Only--I didn't think I could ever be so--horribly brazen--as to ask a man to----" "You haven't asked me anything," he answered whimsically, a smile on his lips, a humorous twinkle in the eyes that looked so tenderly at her rosy face. "You haven't asked me anything yet!" "Don't make me more ashamed," she whispered. "It is dreadful to have come--to have said--to----" "To have played the part of a gracious and lovely queen, whose Prince Consort dares not speak, until she gives him the right?" His voice was a caressing whisper, his arm held her more closely. "And even now, I do not know whether I have any business to accept the right you give me? You and I are such poles asunder." "Are we?" she answered softly, her hand touching his. "Are we really 'poles asunder,' just because I happen to have a little more money than you have? Aren't we just a man and woman, who----"