When the page had gone, Daisy ran into the back room and passed a brush over her hair, and just gave her face one touch with the powder puff which Madame Clarisse had left behind on her toilet-table, and returned into the sitting-room to confront, not Colonel Orpington, as she had expected, but John Merton. Daisy started, and did not attempt to conceal her displeasure. "I have ventured once again to call upon you, Miss Stafford," said John; "but I had better commence by saying that this time I have not come on my own business." "That at all events is good hearing, Mr. Merton," said Daisy, coldly. "Exactly," said John. "I expected you to speak of it in that way. You may depend upon it you will never be further troubled, so far as I am concerned." "To what, then, do I owe this----" "Intrusion, you were going to say," interrupted he. "It is an intrusion, I suppose, so far as it is unasked and decidedly unwelcome." "You speak bluntly, Mr. Merton." "I speak strongly because I feel strongly, Miss Stafford." "Perhaps you will be good enough to speak intelligibly at the same time," said Daisy. "You have enlarged upon what you have been pleased to call your unwelcome intrusion; but you have not explained the reason of it." "You are right," said John. "I will proceed to do so at once. I am afraid I shall be a little lengthy, but that is unavoidable." Daisy bowed, and tapped her foot impatiently. She felt that there was something horribly irritating in the calmness of this man's manner. "I must begin at the beginning," said John, "and in doing so I must allude to matters which I have just promised should not again be mentioned by me. However, it is a necessity, and I will touch upon them as lightly as possible. You know that, ever since I first made your acquaintance through my sister, I took the greatest interest in you, and ended by being hopelessly in love with you." Daisy bowed very coldly. "I daresay it was very ridiculous, and I know you consider it highly presumptuous, though I am bound to confess I do not see any reason why I should have not felt an honest love for you, and should not have mentioned it to you. We are both members of the same class in society; and if it suited them in other ways, there was no reason why the milliner's first hand and the draper's assistant should not have been married." He said these last words quietly; but there was a certain amount of bitterness in his tone, and Daisy flushed angrily as she heard them. She was about to speak, but refrained, and merely motioned him to proceed. "However, that could not be," said John Merton in continuance. "The right of acceptance or rejection remained entirely with you, and you decided upon the latter." He paused for a moment, and then said in a lower tone: