"So you have felt that way too, have you?" she asked. "You have been overwhelmed by the immensity of the metropolis? You have known what it is to sink into the multitude, knowing that nobody cares who you are, or where you are going, or what you are doing, or what hopes and desires and dreams fill your head? You have found out that it is only in a great city that one can be really isolated--for in a village nobody is ever allowed to be alone. But in a human whirlpool like this you can be sucked down to death and nobody will answer your outcry." He gave her another of his penetrating glances. "It surprises me that you can have such feelings--or even that you can know what such feelings are," he said, "you who lead so brilliant a life, with dinners every day, and parties, and--" "Yes," she interrupted, with a hard little laugh, "but I have been lonely even at a dinner of twenty-four. I go to all these things, as you say--I've had my share of gaiety this winter, I'll admit--and then I come back here to this hideous hotel, where I don't know a single soul. Why, I haven't a real friend--not what I call a _friend_--in all New York." She saw that he had listened to her as though somewhat surprised, not only by what she was saying, but also by the tone in which she said it. She observed that her last remark struck him as offering an opening for the proposal which she felt certain he had come to make that afternoon. "You must not say that, Mrs. Randolph," he began. "Surely you know that I--" Then he broke off suddenly as the door of the next room opened and Jemima entered with a tray in her hands. "You will let me give you a cup of tea, won't you?" the widow asked, as Jemima poured out the steaming water. "Thank you," the sailor answered. "Your tea is always delicious." Jemima lighted the lamp under the silver kettle. Then she left the room, silently, and Stone was about to take up the conversation where she had interrupted it, when she came back with a plate of thin bread-and-butter, and a little glass dish with slices of lemon. He checked himself again, not wanting to talk before the servant. Jemima stole a curious glance at him, as though wondering what manner of man he was. Then she turned down the flame of the little lamp and left the room. Mrs. Randolph was glad that the conversation had been interrupted at that point. She had made up her mind to accept Stone's offer when he should ask her to marry him, but her immediate impulse was to procrastinate. She did not doubt that he would propose before he left her that afternoon, and yet she wanted to keep him at arm's-length as long as she could. There were imperative reasons, she thought, why she should marry him; but she knew she would bitterly regret having to give up her liberty--having to surrender the control of herself. "You don't take sugar, I remember," she said, as she poured out his cup of tea. "And only one slice of lemon, isn't it?"