Mr. Townsend made no attempt to touch the outstretched hand. He merely bowed. "Miss Jardine!" Miss Jardine was not at all disconcerted. She laughed. "So it's that way!" She assumed an air of mock dignity, which became her very well. "Mr. Townsend, may I offer you a chair?" "With your permission I will stand." Mr. Townsend spoke with an air of decorous propriety which approached the severe. The lady did not fall into his mood at all. She looked up at him with her sunny eyes. "Stand! Why stand?" Mr. Townsend returned the young lady's smiling glance, without evincing any inclination to smile in return. "You have sent for me. I have come." Going to the fireplace, Miss Jardine stood with one foot upon the kerb. Her hands were behind her back. Her face was inclined a little upwards. She reminded one somehow of a bird--a resemblance which owed something, perhaps, to the brightness of her eyes. "I have one or two questions which I wish to ask you. You must answer them. First, Do you love me?" "You must forgive my suggesting that that is scarcely the first question which you should ask me. The man in the street may love you. It does not follow that he is worthy." "But if I love him?" Mr. Townsend made a slight movement with his hands. He was standing in what, to the average Englishman, is a rather trying position--in the centre of the room, away from any article of furniture, with his arms hanging loosely at his sides; and yet he looked well. "He may love you. You may love him. And yet any connection with him may bring you, at the best, unhappiness." "You have not answered my question. Do you love me?" "You know that I do." "As you say, I know that you do. You know also that I love you. My second question, Are you married?" "I am not." "Then why should you not marry me? Stay! Let me explain my position." His eyes became, if anything, brighter. Something came over her which made one forget how physically small she was. One realised that the girl, like the man she was addressing, had a magnetic personality of her own.