"Married to whom?" she asked with dangerous obtuseness. "To me, of course." The perplexed lift of her straight brows was perfectly done. "I don't understand. Why should I marry you?" His eyes held hers, and at the back of that clear gaze she saw a glint of comprehension and, coincidently, of good-humoured reproof which was maddening. Without batting an eyelid, he suggested a sympathetic elder amusedly tolerating the peevishness of a child. "I really don't know," he said coolly. "It occurred to me you might like to. Besides, you love me." The man's audacity stunned her. In her consternation it was some time before she could find suitable words wherewith to administer a stinging rebuke, and the effort was not diminished by the knowledge that he had spoken nothing but the truth. "You flatter yourself," she said coldly, and he smiled. "You flatter me," was his quick response. "Now, for the love of Mike don't boil over with rage--not till we've finished eating, anyway. Squabbling at meal times is so horribly bad for the digestion! You wouldn't like me to utter a loud shriek and collapse on the floor, clasping my diaphragm--a young man stricken down in his prime with dyspepsia--would you?" Her retort had simply glanced off the armour of his confidence. The edge of it had cut rather less ice than would cover a sixpence. He might have done no more than ask her to go to the theatre with him, and agreed to wait for an answer until she had consulted her engagement book. He was--Good Lord! He was actually _humouring_ her! "You're mistaken--you won't refuse ever to see me again," he said, and, looking up, she saw that his eyes were still upon her, and knew that he had read her thoughts. And then he switched from the subject with the abruptness of the turning off of a tap: "How's Terry these days? D'you remember the X Esquire case? Old Terry was in that, though it never came out." He continued blithely to recount the story in that staccato, jerky way he had of speaking, and she had to listen in spite of herself.