He rose from the table, conscious of victory. "I'll just go and get on my boots," he said, and he slipped away. Sally mounted to her room followed by Janet. "He's going to propose," said Miss Hallard. "He's not," retorted Sally. "I'm perfectly certain he is. He's been excited about something all the evening. He's come into some money or something. He talked to-night as if he could buy up all the art treasures in the kingdom." "You think he's going to buy me up?" "He's going to make his offer. What'll you do?" "Well--what can I do? Would you marry him?" "That's not the question. There's no chance of him asking me. You can't speculate on whether you'll marry a man until he asks you--your mind is biassed before then." "I don't believe you'd marry any one," said Sally. "It's quite probable," she replied laconically. Sally began to take off her hat again. "I'm not going out with him," she said. "I shall hate it." "Don't be foolish--put on that hat, and see what it's like to be proposed to by an earnest young gentleman on the banks of a river, at nine o'clock in the evening. Go on--don't be foolish, Sally. It does a woman good to be proposed to--teaches her manners--go on. You may like him--you don't know." Sally obeyed reluctantly. In the heart of her was a dread of it; in her mind, the tardy admission that she was doing her duty, sacrificing at the altar upon which every woman at some time or other is compelled to make her offering. In the little linoleum'd passage, known as the hall, Mr. Arthur was waiting for her. He had exchanged his felt slippers for a pair of boots; round his neck he had wrapped an ugly muffler and a cap was perched jauntily on his head. The impression that he gave Sally, of being confident of his success, stung her for a moment to resentment. She determined to refuse him. But that mood was only momentary. When the door had closed behind them and they had begun to walk along the paved river path, the impression and its accompanying decision vanished. Sally was a romantic--that cannot be denied. She could talk reverently about love in the abstract. In her mind, it was not a condition into which one fell, as the unwary traveller falls into the ditch by the roadside, picking himself out as quickly as may be, or, in his weariness, choosing at least to sleep the night there and go on with his journey next morning. In the heart of Sally, whether it were a pitfall or not, love was an end in itself. She directed all her steps towards that destination, and any light of romance allured her.