"Hardly, I think," she said, "since your servant admitted me to an interview with you. May I ask you one or two questions before you finally decide against me?" The voice was low and soft--the voice men loved in the early sixties, before the shrill shriek became the voice of fashionable ladies. "Certainly," Michael said. He could hardly say less, and in the tumult of embarrassment that had swept over him, he could not for his life have said more. The old lady went on. "I am competent to manage a house. I can read aloud fairly well. I am a good nurse in case of sickness; and I am accustomed to entertain. But I gather from the amount of the salary offered that some other duties would be required of me?" "That's clever of her, too," Michael thought; "none of the others saw that." He bowed. "Would you enlighten me," she went on, "as to the nature of the services you would require?" "Ah--yes--of course," he said glibly, and then stopped short. "From your hesitation," said the old lady, with unimpaired self-possession, "I gather that the matter involves an explanation of some delicacy, or else--pardon the egotism--that my appearance is personally unpleasing to you." "No--oh, _no_," Michael said very eagerly; "on the contrary, if I may say so, it is just because you are so--so--exactly my ideal of an old lady, that I feel I can't go on with the business; and that's put stupidly, so that it sounds like an insult. Please forgive me." She looked him straight in the eyes through her gold-rimmed spectacles. "You see, I am old enough to be your grandmother," she said. "Why not tell me the truth?" And, to his horror and astonishment, he told it. "And that's what I meant to do," he ended. "It was a mad idea, and I see now that if I do it at all I must marry some one who is not--who is not like you. You have made me ashamed of myself." A spot of pink colour glowed in her faded cheek. The old lady put up her gloved hand and touched her cheek, as if it burned. She got up and walked to the window, and stood there, looking out. "If you _are_ going to do it," she said in a voice that was hardly audible, "I have been used to live among beautiful surroundings--I should like to end my days among them. I do not come of a long-lived family. You would not have long to wait for your freedom and your second wife." Never in all his days had Michael known so sharp an agony of embarrassment. "When must you be married," the old lady went on calmly, "to ensure your fortunes and estates?" "In about a month." "Well, Mr Wood, I make you a formal offer of marriage, and for reference I can give you my banker and my solicitor----" Her voice was calm; it was his voice that trembled as he answered: "You are too good. I can't see that it would be fair to you. May I think about it till to-morrow?"