“It would be better in some ways,” said Gita musingly. “What—what—_you_——” Bylant could hardly articulate. “I think you’d do very well. What would you answer if I proposed to you?” Bylant’s face, which had turned white, suddenly looked as if the blood would burst through the skin. “I don’t understand you,” he stuttered. “Mean to say you don’t want to marry me?” “Of course I do!” he exploded. “But how did you find it out?” “Oh, I’m not as dense as you think. I suppose, as you’re really conventional, you’d have liked to do the proposing yourself.” “Not a bit of it. I don’t care a damn——” And then a flicker of apprehension in Gita’s eyes, otherwise as cold and calm as the pool, struck a warning note in his consciousness. He sank back on his elbow. The blood ebbed from his face and he shrugged his shoulders. “Let us have this out,” he said practically. “Unless, of course, you are cultivating your sense of humor.” “Not at all. I’ve known for some time you intended to marry me, and when Mrs. Pleyden insisted I meet those one-ideaed tanked-up friends of Polly’s often enough to convince me of the utter boredom of a winter in their society, and always had you on hand to make them appear like morons by contrast (she doesn’t share Polly’s enthusiasm for my outrée self, you know), and when you trotted out three of your friends, infinitely superior, but by no means dangerous, I knew the siege was closing in.” “Good lord!” muttered Bylant. “You needn’t blush. I admire your tactics immensely.” “I believe you’d see through a stone wall.” “Say a gauze curtain with an arc-light behind it. I fancy I’ll get a lot of fun out of life.” “I fancy you will.” His tones were as dry as his tongue. “And I’d get a lot more with you than I could by myself——” “But I thought marriage to you was anathema.” Bylant hardly knew what he was saying. What in heaven’s name was this incalculable girl driving at? “In the commonplace sense, of course. But with us it would be different. We’d just hitch up as a matter of form, and then we could be together always.” There was no rising inflection in her cool clear voice. Nor any accent of finality. She assumed, beyond question, that the arrangement would be as agreeable to him as to her royal self. For a moment Bylant did not raise his eyes; he had kept them carefully lowered. Then he sat up and lit a cigarette. His tan did not conceal his pallor but his eyes were as calm and steady as those hard black diamonds opposite. “I think I’ll accept your offer of marriage,” he said lightly. “You took my breath away or I shouldn’t have been so ungallant as to hesitate—seemingly. I hope you didn’t think me that?” His voice was whimsically anxious. “I know men are not accustomed to being proposed to even now, although I wouldn’t put it past some of the girls. But I knew you’d take forever to summon up your courage, so why not take the bull by the horns—bad simile, that. You’re just a dear old ox.”