simple-minded, unaffected young man who was a little bit embarrassed by his title and his wealth. As for their ladies, it was their decided opinion that a young peer of such ancient lineage and such great responsibilities should marry as soon as possible, and each believed that it was Lord Saxonstowe’s bounden duty to choose a wife from one of the old north-country families. In this Saxonstowe agreed with them. He desired a wife, and a wife from the north country, and he knew where to find her, and wanted her so much that it had long been evident to his sober judgment that, failing her, no other woman would ever call him husband. The more he was left alone, the more deeply he sank in the sea of love. And at last he felt that life was too short to be trifled with, and he went back to Sprats and asked her firmly and insistently to marry him. Sprats was neither hurt nor displeased nor surprised. She listened silently to all he had to say, and she looked at him with her usual frankness when he had finished. ‘I thought we were not to talk of these matters?’ she said. ‘We were to be friends--was there not some sort of compact?’ ‘If so, I have broken it,’ he answered--‘not the friendship--that, never!--but the compact. Besides, I don’t remember anything about that. As to talking of this, well, I intend to go on asking you to marry me until you do.’ ‘You have not forgotten what I told you?’ she said, eyeing him with some curiosity. ‘Not at all. I have thought a lot about it,’ he answered. ‘I have not only thought, but I have come to a conclusion.’ ‘Yes?’ she said, still curious. ‘What conclusion?’ ‘That you are deceiving yourself,’ he answered. ‘You think you love Lucian Damerel. I do not doubt that you do, in a certain way, but not in the way in which I would wish you, for instance, to love me, and in which I believe you could and would love me--if you would let yourself.’ Sprats stared at him with growing curiosity and surprise. There was something masterful and lordly about his tone and speech that filled her heart with a great sense of contentment--it was the voice of the superior animal calling to the inferior, of the stronger to the weaker. And she was so strong that she had a great longing to be weak--always providing that something stronger than herself were shielding her weakness. ‘Well?’ was all she could say. ‘You have always felt a sense of protection for him,’ continued Saxonstowe. ‘It was in you from the first--you wanted something to take care of. But isn’t there sometimes a feeling within you that you’d like to be taken care of yourself?’ ‘Who taught you all this?’ she asked, with puzzled brows. ‘You seem to have acquired some strange knowledge of late.’ ‘I expect it’s instinct, or nature, or something,’ he said. ‘Anyhow, have I spoken the truth?’