"Because I choose. You thought you could play with me and fool me and trick me out of what I mean to have--" "What you mean to have?" "Yes, what I mean to have. I mean to marry Miss Desmond--if she'll have me." "_You_--mean to marry? Saul is among the prophets with a vengeance!" The scorn came naturally to her voice now. Vernon stood as if turned to stone. Nothing had ever astonished him so much as those four words, spoken in his own voice, "I mean to marry." He repeated them. "I mean to marry Miss Desmond, if she'll have me. And it's your doing." "Of course," she shrugged her shoulders. "Naturally it would be. Won't you sit down? You look so uncomfortable. Those French tragedy scenes with the hero hat in one hand and gloves in the other always seem to me so comic." That was her score, the first. He put down the hat and gloves and came towards her. And as he came he hastily sketched his plan of action. When he reached her it was ready formed. His anger was always short lived. It had died down and left him competent as ever to handle the scene. He took her hands, pushed her gently into a chair near the table, and sat down beside her with his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. "Forgive me, dear," he said. "I was a brute. Forgive me--and help me. No one can help me but you." It was a master-stroke: and he had staked a good deal on it. The stake was not lost. She found no words. "My dear, sweet Jasmine lady," he said, "let me talk to you. Let me tell you everything. I can talk to you as I can talk to no one else, because I know you're fond of me. You are fond of me--a little, aren't you--for the sake of old times?" "Yes," she said, "I am fond of you." "And you forgive me--you do forgive me for being such a brute? I hardly knew what I was doing." "Yes," she said, speaking as one speaks in dreams, "I forgive you." "Thank you," he said humbly; "you were always generous. And you always understand." "Wait--wait. I'll attend to you presently," she was saying to her heart. "Yes, I know it's all over. I know the game's up. Let me pull through this without disgracing myself, and I'll let you hurt me as much as you like afterwards." "Tell me," she said gently to Vernon, "tell me everything." He was silent, his face still hidden. He had cut the knot of an impossible situation and he was pausing to admire the cleverness of the stroke. In two minutes he had blotted out the last six months--months in which he and she had been adversaries. He had thrown himself on her mercy, and he had done wisely. Never, even in the days when he had carefully taught himself to be in love with her, had he liked her so well as now, when she got up from her chair to come and lay her hand softly on his shoulder and to say: "My poor boy,--but there's nothing for you to be unhappy about. Tell me all about it--from the very beginning."