"Oh, need you ask? Don't you see how it betrayed my thoughts? Why, it looked as though I made quite sure he was going to propose again. Can't you understand how horrible it was?" says Bebe, burying her face in her hands, with a hysterical laugh. "_He_ understood it so, at all events. He stopped right before me, and said, deliberately, with his eyes fixed on mine, 'Why do you leave the room? I came for a book, and for nothing else, I assure you.' Thus taken aback, I actually stammered and blushed like a ridiculous schoolgirl, and said, weakly, 'It is almost time to think of dressing. We start so soon. And besides--I---' Could anything be more foolish? 'One would think I had the plague or the pestilence, the way you rush from a room the moment I enter it,' says he, impatiently.--'I swear I am not going to propose again. I have had enough of it. I have no desire whatever to marry a woman against her will. I asked you to be my wife, for the second time, a week or two ago, thinking my poverty had been the cause of your former refusal, and was justly punished for my conceit. Believe me, I have brains enough, to retain a lesson, once I have learned it; so you may sit down, Miss Beatoun, with the certainty that I shall never again offend you in _that_ way.' I could never tell you how I felt, Phyllis, during the utterance of these words. My very blood was tingling with shame. My eyes would not be lifted; and, besides, they were full of tears. I felt that I hated both myself and him." "It was a very curious speech for him to make," say I, feeling both puzzled and indignant with Chandos. "I think he was quite right," declares she, veering round to resent what seems like an attack on my part. "It must have angered and disgusted him to see me so confident of his lasting affection as to imagine him ready to make a fresh offer every time people left us _tete-a-tete_. I think any man with spirit would have done just so. No one is to be blamed but myself." "On the other hand, why should he conclude you thought anything of the sort?" I say, defending her stoutly in spite of herself. "He only proved the idea to be quite as uppermost in his mind as it was in yours. I would have said something to that effect had I been you." "_Said_, my dear I could not have even _thought_ of anything at the moment, I was so confused. It is the simplest thing possible to think of what would have been the correct thing to say, and to make up neat little speeches, half an hour after the opportunity for uttering them is passed, but just on the instant how few have presence of mind!" "It was provoking," say I, "and"--with an irrepressible little laugh--"funny, too. My own impression is he _did_ come back to renew his pleadings, but saw by your manner it would be useless. Pity you did not insist on knowing the title of the book he was so anxious to procure. At all events it is nothing to be miserable about, dear Bebe."