"I noticed something special--something I could not interpret--in your manner," was her gentle reply. "I told my friend that I thought you must imagine that you knew me. I was interested when mamma said that it was my likeness to her which drew your attention. I was glad to have it so well explained." He leaned forward, intent upon her face and her down-bent gaze. "Well," he said, in a voice which thrilled her curiously, "perhaps you think that my suggestion is not quite so surprising, after all?" Virginia made no reply. Her mother clenched her hands in rage, made some small movement, enough to attract his attention, and caught a ray of what was undoubtedly malice directed at her from under his heavy lids. "Well," he went on, turning again to the girl, his tone subdued and almost gentle, "what do you say?" She wavered--her colour came. Innocent and ignorant of life though she was, she yet felt the immensity of the step she was taking; but, strangely enough, the fact that the man gave her no help counted in his favour with her. His manner suggested some tremendous feeling, out of sight. His aloofness was like a fine and delicate consideration. The mocking quality in his address, so obvious to her mother, passed her by. "Do you really think," she asked, her gaze still upon the ground, "that I am an adequate exchange for all the things you promise to do for--_them_?" "Tell me now--enumerate--what have I promised to do for _them_?" She lifted her eyes then. He was not looking at her, but brushing the sleeve of his coat where a crumb had fallen upon it. This avoidance gave her courage. "To educate Tony," said her voice, so fatally like her mother's in its cadenced sweetness, "to allow mother three hundred pounds a year, and to let Pansy have the best advice and treatment for her lameness." "I admit all that, right enough. Anything more?" "To settle five thousand pounds on me----" He looked in triumph at Mrs. Mynors. "Admirable!" he said, with a sarcasm which penetrated to the girl's intelligence with a shock. She broke off, startled. "All right," he told her soothingly. "I agree to that too. Anything more?" "Our solicitor, Mr. Askew, said there was another thing that I ought to ask," she replied, quite tranquilly. "It is that you should make a will in my favour, so that if anything happened to you, we should not be left destitute." He once more let his mocking glance lash Mrs. Mynors. "I appreciate my future wife's business capacity," said he, "but I warn you that I am horribly healthy. Except for the accident which lamed me, I have not had a day's illness in my life. I fear I shan't oblige you by dying just yet." Virgie grew pink. "Oh, I beg your pardon! That must have sounded very cold-blooded," she apologised. "But you said it was a business offer, did you not?" He smiled for the first time. Dropping his voice to a low persuasiveness: "Did you quite believe that?" he asked.