“I mean I never thought it would go as far as this--that you would be so persistent--so much in earnest.” “A new light on the matter, evidently.” As she grew more agitated, Fitz had become calmer. “Because it’s impossible, you know.” “Excuse me, I don’t know anything of the kind.” “You are a great deal younger than I am, for one thing.” “Barely three years, and it’s a fault that will mend.” “No, it won’t. As you get older, I shall get old faster, and if there is a thing I detest, it is to see a young man with an elderly wife. I could not endure to feel that I was growing old while you were still in the prime of life. You would hate it yourself, too, and you would leave off caring for me, and we should both be miserable.” “Try me!” said Fitz, with a light in his eyes that she could not meet. “And then there’s another thing,” she went on hurriedly. “I know it sounds horrid to say it, but--it’s not only that three years--you are so young for your age. I’m not a reasonable creature like Georgia; I simply long to be made to obey, whether I like it or not. I feel that I want a master, but I could make you do what I liked.” “Could you? But perhaps I could make you do what I liked. Just look at me for a moment.” But Mabel covered her eyes. “No, I won’t. It sounds as if I had been inviting you to master me, which wouldn’t be at all what I meant. Please understand, once for all, that I don’t care for you enough to marry you.” “Very well. But you will one day. If I am young, there’s one good thing about it--I can wait.” “It’s no good whatever your thinking that I shall change.” “That is my business, please. I presume my thoughts are my own? and I feel that I shall teach you to love me yet.” “I shouldn’t have thought,” said Mabel indignantly, “that it was like you to persecute a woman who had refused you.” “Don’t be afraid. I shall not persecute you; I shall simply wait.” “And try to make me miserable by looking doleful? I call that persecution, just the same. No, really, if you are going to be so disagreeable, I shall have to speak to my brother, and ask him to get you transferred somewhere else, and that would be very bad for your prospects.” Mabel thought that this threat sounded extremely telling, but to Fitz, who had declined excellent posts in other parts of the province, rather than quit the frontier which grows to have such a strange fascination for every Khemistan man, it was less alarming. “Don’t trouble to get protection from the Major, Miss North. I assure you it won’t be necessary.” “But am I to be kept in perpetual dread of having to discuss this--this unpleasant subject? I think it is very unkind of you,” said Mabel, with tears in her eyes, “for I had come to like you so much as a friend, and you were always so useful, and now----”