"Yes, yes, I know. I hadn't ought to talk like this. Ladies don't. I can see it in your face. But it's because I want to _know_ so--because I must know. Please, won't you tell me?" With a quick lifting of his head Mr. Donald Estey pulled himself sharply together. Flattering as it was to be thus deferred to, this flirtation--if flirtation it were--had gone quite far enough. He laughed again lightly and sprang to his feet. "Couldn't think of it, Mrs. Darling. Really, I couldn't, you know!" "Mr. Estey!" She, too, was on her feet. She had laid a persuasive hand on his arm. "Please, you think I'm joking; but I'm not. I really mean it. If you only would do it--it would mean so much to me! And don't--don't look at me like that. I _know_ I'm not being proper, and I know ladies don't do so--what I'm doing. But when I saw it--such a splendid chance to ask you, I--I just had to do it." "But--but--" The startled, nonplussed man stuttered like a bashful schoolboy; "it really is so--so absurd, Mrs. Darling, when you--er--stop to think of it." She sighed despairingly, but she did not take her hand from his arm. "Then, if"--she spoke hurriedly, and with evident embarrassment--"if you won't tell me that way, won't you please tell me another? Could you--would you-- Am I _any_ like that girl, Mr. Estey?" Mr. Donald Estey was guilty of an actual gasp of dismay. In a whirl of vexation at the situation in which he found himself, he groped blindly for a safe way out. Of course young women (young women such as he knew) did not really propose to one; but was it possible that that was exactly what this somewhat remarkable young widow was doing? It seemed incredible. And yet-- "Am I, Mr. Estey? Or do you think I could--learn?" "Why, er--er--" "I mean, would you--could you marry--_me_?" Every vestige of self-control slipped from the tortured man like a garment. Conscious only of an insane desire to flee from this wretched woman who was about to march him to the altar willy-nilly, he quite jerked his arm free. "Well, really, Mrs. Darling, I--I--" "You wouldn't, I can see you wouldn't!" There was a heartbroken little sob in her voice. "But--but, Mrs. Darling! Oh, hang it all! What a perfectly preposterous situation!" he stormed wrathfully. "I don't want--to marry anybody. I tell you I'm not a marrying man! I--" He stopped short at the astounding change that had come to the little woman opposite. She was staring into his face with a growing terror that suddenly, at its height, broke into a gale of hysterical laughter. She covered her face with her hands and dropped into the chair behind her.