But the other would not be diverted for a moment. “I—I wish—pardon me, Miss Castleman, but I want you to tell me—what is your relation to him?” “Why, really, Mr. van Tuiver——” “I know I’ve no right—but I’m desperate!” “But—suppose I don’t care to discuss the matter?” She was decided in her tone, for she saw that stern measures were necessary if he was to be checked. But nothing could stop him—he was beyond mere convention. “Miss Castleman,” he rushed on, “I must tell you—I’ve tried my best, but I can’t help it! I love you—as I’ve never dreamed that a man could love. I want to marry you!” He stopped, breathing hard; and Sylvia, off her guard, exclaimed, “No!” “I mean it!” he declared. “I’m in earnest—I want to marry you!” She caught herself together. She had not meant this to happen. She answered, with a tone of _hauteur_, “Mr. van Tuiver, you have no right to say that to me.” “But why not? I am making you an offer of marriage. You must understand. I mean it.” “I am able to believe that you mean it; but that is not the point. You have no right to ask me to marry you, when I have refused you my friendship.” There was a pause. He sat staring at her in pitiful bewilderment. “I thought,” he said, “this was more serious.” And then he stopped, reading in her face that something was wrong. “Isn’t an offer of marriage more serious than one of friendship?” he inquired. “More serious?” repeated Sylvia. “More important, you mean?” “Exactly.” “More attractive, that is?” she suggested. “Why—yes.” “In other words, Mr. van Tuiver, you thought that a man with so much money might be accepted as a husband when he’d been rejected as a friend?” “Why—not exactly that, Miss Castleman——” But Sylvia hardly heard his denial. A wave of annoyance, of disgust, had swept over her. She rose to her feet. “You have justified my worst opinion of you!” she exclaimed. “What have I done?” he cried, miserably. “It isn’t what you’ve done, as I’ve told you before—it’s what you are, Mr. van Tuiver. You are utterly, utterly impossible, and I’m furious with myself for having heard what you have just said to me.” “Miss Castleman! I beseech you——” But she would not hear him further. She could not endure his presence. “There is no use saying another word,” she declared. “I will not talk to you. I will not know you!” The madness of love was upon him; he held out his hands imploringly. But she repelled him with blazing eyes. “You must go!” she said. “Go at once! I will not see you again—I positively forbid you to come near me.” He tried twice to speak, but each time she stopped him, crying, “Go, Mr. van Tuiver!” And so at last he went, almost crying with humiliation and distress, in his agitation forgetting his hat and gloves. So furious was Sylvia that she shut the door, and fell on the sofa weeping.