Remorsefully she repeated, "I am so sorry----" Then stopped abruptly. She seemed, in the darkness and the vibrating atmosphere, to have caught a floating idea that startled her somewhat. She began again gravely. "Will you lend me your torch for a minute?" She felt it put into her hand. Quickly Olwen said, "It's very rude of me, but I _must_ look at you, please: I must see your face!" Then she turned the little beam right upon him. Then she exclaimed, "Mr. Ellerton!" "Yes----" he said, unmistakably sheepish. Olwen burst out laughing. "You are a fraud," she exclaimed gaily. "You aren't one bit sorry that I refused you. You're trying not to, but you're looking----yes, _relieved_. You're glad! Don't pretend!" "Oh, I say----" "No! Don't pretend! You were laughing. You're feeling gladder than you've ever felt over anything in your life because I don't want to marry you! I _know_!" Young Ellerton dragged his handkerchief from his cuff, pushed back his cap and wiped his forehead. "Bai Jove," he said with the sincerest admiration in his tone, "you _are_ a clever little thing. I--I don't think any of the others have ever tumbled to that." A moment later he found himself talking to her with more real ease and enjoyment than he had ever talked to a girl in his life; with real fluency. To her (during the second hour for which they were hung up) he confessed that no, he didn't want to get married. There were people----anyhow, men, who _didn't_. Not to the sweetest and prettiest girl in the world. Not to _anybody_. To tie himself up like that for life, declared the young sailor, was what he wouldn't want to do for anything under the sun; certainly not for anything under a hat. Never! Olwen, finding she had ceased to be bored by him for the first time since she had left Mrs. Cartwright's turned her face towards him in the dark and plied him with question after laughing question. "But you ask people to marry you!" "Can't stop myself! It's the devil!" "And none of them have accepted you?" "Yes; one! A girl who was at college with my sister. A nice girl. I did get to loathe her!" with feeling. "We were engaged for one whole awful week!" "How did you break it off, then?" "She did. I loved her for that. She said I was too much like the young man in Stevenson who said being engaged was all right as long as her sisters were there. So she chucked me. And after that I've been lucky----I mean, you know what I mean!" Olwen shook with laughter. "But, then, why d'you _do_ it?" she persisted. "I tell you I can't help it. It happens!" "Why? For instance, why did you let it happen tonight? Quite frankly, _why_ did you ask me?"