Mirabelle looked at the flowers, but did not take them. He seemed in no way disconcerted, either by her silence, or by the antagonism which her attitude implied, but, laying the flowers on top of the books, he clasped his hands before him and addressed her. He was nervous, for some reason; the skin of his forehead was furrowing and smoothing with grotesque rapidity. She watched the contortions, fascinated. “To every man,” he began, “there comes a moment of domestic allurement. Even to the scientific mind, absorbed in its colossal problems, there is this desire for family life and for the haven of rest which is called marriage.” He paused, as though he expected her to offer some comment upon his platitude. “Man alone,” he went on, when she did not speak, “has established an artificial and unnatural convention that, at a certain age, a man should marry a woman of that same age. Yet it has been proved by history that happy marriages are often between a man who is in the eyes of the world old, and a lady who is youthful.” She was gazing at him in dismay. Was he proposing to her? The idea was incredible, almost revolting. He must have read in her face the thoughts that were uppermost in her mind, the loathing, the sense of repulsion which filled her, yet he went on, unabashed: “I am a man of great riches. You are a girl of considerable poverty. But because I saw you one day in your poor house, looking, gracious lady, like a lily growing amidst foul weeds, my heart went out to you, and for this reason I brought you to London, spending many thousands of pounds in order to give myself the pleasure of your company.” “I don’t think you need go any farther, Dr. Oberzohn,” she said quietly, “if you’re proposing marriage, as I think you are.” He nodded emphatically. “Such is my honourable intention,” he said. “I would never marry you in any circumstances,” she said. “Not even if I had met you under the happiest conditions. The question of your age”—she nearly added “and of your appearance,” but her natural kindness prevented that cruel thrust, though it would not have hurt him in the slightest degree—“has nothing whatever to do with my decision. I do not even like you, and have never liked you, Mr. Oberzohn.” “Doctor,” he corrected, and in spite of her woeful plight she could have laughed at this insistence upon the ceremonial title. “Young miss, I cannot woo you in the way of my dear and sainted brother, who was all for ladies and had a beautiful manner.” She was amazed to hear that he had a brother at all—and it was almost a relief to know that he was dead. “Martyred, at the hands of wicked and cunning murderers, slain in his prime by the assassin’s pistol . . .” His voice trembled and broke. “For that sainted life I will some day take vengeance.” It was not wholly curiosity that impelled her to ask who killed him.