Chalfont was silent, because he was wondering how far he dared to go with this girl who had talked about a “wee mystery” and who did not hold him in sufficient confidence to tell him where she lived or let him see her home. This was only the second time that he had met her and he asked himself with amazement whether it could be true that he was ready to sacrifice career, position and everything else for her sake. There were other women who had flitted across his line of vision and with whom he had passed the time. They had left him untouched, unmoved, a confirmed bachelor. But during the days that he had spent in an eager search for Lola he knew that this child had conquered him and brought him down with a crash. He didn’t give a single curse who she was, where she came from or what was this mystery to which she referred. He loved her. He wanted her, and he would go through fire and water to make her his wife. And having come to that conclusion, he broke the silence hitherto disturbed only by the odd wailing of machinery on the other side of the river and by the traffic passing over Westminster Bridge like fireflies. He put his hand under Lola’s elbow, stopped her and drew her to the stonework of the embankment. “In an hour or two,” he said, “I suppose you will disappear again and not give me another thought until you cry out, ‘Horse, horse, play with me,’ and there isn’t a horse. I can’t let that happen.” Instinct and the subconscious inheritance of a knowledge of men kept Lola from asking why not. The question would obviously provide Chalfont with a dangerous cue. So Chalfont went on unhelped. He said, “Look here, let’s have all this out. I want you to marry me. I want you to be perfectly frank and treat me fairly. You’re a widow and you appear to be alone. I don’t want to force your hand or ask you to haul down your fourth wall. Nor do I hope that you will care more about me than any girl after two meetings. I just want to know this. Are there any complications? Is there anything in the way of my seeing you day after day and doing my utmost to show you that I love you more than anything on earth?” Simpkins, Treadwell, Chalfont. But where, oh, where was Fallaray? Lola didn’t know what to say. What was there in her that did these things to men? She looked up into Chalfont’s face and shook her head. “You’re a knight,” she said. “You stand in silver armor with a crusader’s cross on your chest. You came to my rescue and proved that there are good men in this world. You have made an everlasting friend of me but,—I love some one else. Oh, Sir Peter Chalfont, I love some one else. He doesn’t know it. He may never know it. I may never see him again. I may die of love like a field daisy put in a dry vase, but when I cross the Bridge I shall wait until he comes, loving him still.”