"Have I any influence at all with you?" he asked. "I thought I had." "I thought so, too," she mused, innocently. "What has happened to destroy it?" "Why, nothing, Kervyn!" opening her eyes. "Does any of my influence with you remain?" "Loads of it. Oceans! Bushels!" "Do you care for me?" "Of course! The silly question." "Seriously?" "Yes, but I don't wish to weep because I care for you." "Could you learn to love me?" "Learn? I don't know," she mused aloud, apparently much interested in the novelty of the suggestion. "I learn some things easily; mathematics I never could learn. _Why_ are you scowling, Kervyn?" "Could you ever love me?" he persisted, doggedly. "I don't know. Do you desire to pay your court to me?" "I--yes----" "You appear to be uncertain. It seems to me that a man ought to know whether or not he desires to pay his addresses to a girl." "Can't you be serious, Karen!" "Indeed I can. You ought to know it, too. I was serious enough over you, once. I followed you about so faithfully and persistently that even when you took a nap I did it too----" "Karen, do you love me?" "I don't know." "Will you try?" "I'm always willing to try anything--once." "Then suppose you try marrying me, once!" he said, bluntly. "But oughtn't a girl to be in love before she tries that? Besides, before I am quite free to converse with you on that subject I must converse with someone else." "What!" "Had you forgotten?" "Do you mean the----" "Yes," she said hastily--"you _do_ remember. _That_ is a prior engagement." "Engagement!" "An engagement to converse on the subject of engagements. I told you about it--in the days of my communicative innocence." He was patient because he had to be. "After you have made your answer clear to him, may I ask you again?" "Ask me what?" "To marry me." "Wouldn't that permission depend upon what answer I may give _him_?" "Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, "is there any doubt about your answer to him?" She lifted her eyebrows: "You are entirely too confident. Must I first ask your permission to fulfill my obligations and then accomplish them in a manner that suits your views? It sounds a little like dictation, Kervyn." He walked beside her, cogitating in gloom and silence. Was this the girl he had known? Was this the same ungrateful and capricious creature upon whom he had bestowed his protection, his personal interest, his anxious thoughts? That he had fallen in love with her had surprised him, but it did not apparently surprise her. Had she instinctively foreseen what was going to happen to him? Had she deliberately watched the process with wise and feminine curiosity, coolly keeping her own skirts clear? And the more he cogitated, the deeper and more complex appeared to him her intuitive and merciless knowledge of man.