But he would not. Despair gave him courage, and he put his arm across the doorway. “Georgie, I’m an idiot and an ass and an utter fool, but give me another chance. I do love you, and if you will only let me try again, now that there’s no other fellow in the way, perhaps you might come to care for me a little in time.” Georgia wavered, and was lost. She had caught sight of his face in the moonlight, and there was an expression in his eyes which completed what his eager, halting words had begun. “Oh, Dick, don’t look at me like that,” she entreated, laying her hands on his arm. “You may try again.” “Try again? Georgie, may I really? How much does that mean?” “Take the night to think over it,” said Georgia, trying to slip past him indoors; but he caught her hands and held her prisoner. “You said just now ‘how could you learn to care for me?’ I thought you meant that it was impossible. Did you mean that there might be a chance? Just the one word, dear.” “Yes,” said Georgia, in a voice which was somewhat muffled. “At least, I mean no. I have cared for you a long time.” “What a beast I have been!” was the next coherent remark uttered by Dick. “You were rather a trial,” was the murmured answer. “But I am going to reform now, Georgie. You must pull me up if I let out at anything in which you have the smallest interest. But I could praise up the New Woman herself to-night.” “Considering that I am the embodiment of the New Woman to your mind,” began Georgia, “that is a very poor----” “I say, North, is there anything wrong? Haven’t you finished your rounds yet?” shouted Stratford, coming to the dining-room window with a half-smoked cigar in his fingers. “No, it’s all right,” answered Dick’s voice, unexpectedly near at hand. “I’ll do the rounds in a minute.” CHAPTER XVII. POINTS OF VIEW. “Well, Georgie?” “Well, Dick?” Georgia’s eyes danced with merriment, for Dick was lying in wait for her on the verandah, with a bunch of roses in his hand. Kubbet-ul-Haj roses are not roses of Damascus, or of Kashmir, or of any other locality famous for the culture of the plant; but poor as they were, they were flowers, and of flowers the prisoners at the Mission had seen but few of late. He held them out to her with quite unusual timidity. “Will you have them?” he asked, somewhat shyly. “Of course I will, Dick. Thank you so much.” She took them from his hand, kissed them, and fastened them in her dress. “Are you satisfied now?” she asked, smiling. “Satisfied!” he said, looking at her admiringly. “I feel now that what happened last night was a reality.” “Why, had you begun to hope it was a dream?” “It might have been merely imagination--too good to be true. Stratford has just been declaring that I was mad last evening. He says that I wanted to sit up all night and talk, and that he had to turn me out of his room by main force.” “Poor fellow! Were you trying to drown the remembrance of what had happened?”