The young man who made the suggestion above recorded was fair and clean-shaven, tall and well-made, with clear-cut feature; in fact, he was very good-looking--good-looking as almost only an Englishman can be. Under a reserved, dandified manner, he tried unsuccessfully to conceal the fact that he was too intelligent for his type. He did not, however, quite attain his standard of entire expressionlessness; and his bright, light-blue eyes and fully-curved lips showed the generous and emotional nature of their owner. At this moment he seemed very much out of temper. They were sitting in a dismal little drawing-room in one of the smallest houses in a dreary street in Belgravia. The room was crowded with dateless, unmeaning furniture, and disfigured by muddled, mistaken decoration. Its designer, probably, had meant well, but had been very far from carrying out his meaning. There were too many things in the room, and most of them were wrong. It would be unjust, however, to suppose Mrs Raymond did not know this. Want of means, and indifference, or perhaps perverseness, had caused her to leave the house unchanged since his death as a sort of monument to poor Colonel Raymond's erring taste. 'You might just as well marry me as not,' said Cecil, in his level voice, but with pleading eyes. He made the gesture of trying to take her hand, but she took hers away. 'You are very pressing, Cecil, but I think not. You know perfectly well--I'm sure I make no secret of it--that I'm ten years older than you. Old enough to be your mother! Am I the sort of person who would take advantage of the fancy of a gilded youth? And, now I come to think of it, your proposal's quite insulting. It's treating me like an adventuress! It's implying that you think I _would_ marry you! Apologise, and withdraw it at once, or I'll never speak to you again.' 'This is nonsense. To begin with,' said Cecil, 'I may be a little gilded--not so very--but I'm far from being a youth. I'm thirty-four.' 'Yes, I know! That's just the absurd part,' she answered inconsequently. 'It's not as if you were a mere boy and didn't know better! And you know how I _hate_ this sort of thing.' 'I know you do, and very likely I wouldn't have worried about marrying at all if you had been nicer to me--in other ways. You see, you brought it on yourself!' 'What _do_ you mean? I _am_ nice. Don't you come here whenever you like--or nearly? Didn't I dine with you once--a year or two ago? I forget, but I think I did.' 'You never did,' he answered sharply. 'Then it must have been with somebody else. Of course I didn't. I shouldn't dream of such a thing.' 'Someone else! Yes, of course; that's it. Well, I want you to marry me, Eugenia, because I want to get you away from everyone else. You see my point?' She laughed. 'Oh, jealousy! That's the last straw. Do you know that you're a nuisance, Cecil?' 'Because I love you?' he said, trying to look into her sly Japanese eyes. She avoided his glance.