The visitor had been afforded an opportunity to disencumber himself of his parcels, and therefore ought to have become more at his ease. But the simple truth was that the sight of the lady embarrassed him more than the parcels had done. His heart was thumping against his ribs; he seemed to be giving way at the knees; his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. However, he managed to stammer out something; though it was only with difficulty that he could articulate at all. "It's awfully good of you to let me come and see you." The lady smiled--a smile which might have been described as of the glacial kind. "Will you sit down, Sir Frank?" He sat down, on the extreme edge of a chair, as if fearful of occupying too much of it at once. He looked--and no doubt was--excessively uncomfortable. Placing herself in the only arm-chair the room contained, she observed him with an air which was at once both cruel and condescending. "You have written me one or two notes, Sir Frank?" He stammered worse than ever. Not only did he find the question an awkward one, but it seemed to him that the lady was even more bewitching in the arm-chair than she had been when standing up. As he realised--or thought he realised--her charms still more clearly, his few remaining senses were rapidly deserting him. "I--I'm afraid I did." "In which you asked me, a perfect stranger, to be your wife?" "I--I'm awfully sorry." "You are sorry? Indeed. Do you mean that you are sorry you asked me to be your wife?" He gasped. There was something in her tone, something in the way in which she peeped at him from under the long lashes which shaded her violet eyes, something in her attitude, in the quality of the smile which parted her pretty lips, which set every fibre in his body palpitating. What did she mean? What could she mean? Was it possible that she meant--what he had scarcely dared to hope she ever would mean? In his stuttering eagerness his words tumbled headforemost over each other. "Of course what I meant was that I know perfectly well that I never ought to have written to you like that. It was frightful cheek, and--and the sort of thing I ought to be kicked for. But as for being sorry that I asked you to be my wife--!" The boy's feelings were so intense that for the moment his breath entirely failed him. When he continued, tears were actually standing in his eyes. "Oh, Miss Lorraine, if you only knew what I have felt since I first saw you. I have been to the theatre every night; I have waited at the stage door to see you come out--" "So I understand. It was very wrong of you." "I had to do something--I couldn't help it. I didn't know anyone who'd introduce me; you wouldn't answer my letters; you refused my presents--" "Certainly; under the circumstances they were so many insults." "I didn't mean them for insults--I swear I didn't. I wouldn't have insulted you, or allowed anyone else to insult you, not--not for all the gold of the Indies."