“I could!” she said; but this was evidently not a reply to his question, for she again held up her curved fingers to view. “I could, and I would! If I were left alone with him for five minutes I _know_ I would!” “Let’s forget him just now,” young Mr. McArdle suggested. “I was telling you about my mother’s coming out here to visit me in a week or so. My family’s really pretty terrible about keeping tabs on me, you know—I mean, for fear I’ll get engaged to anybody except my second cousin Lulu. She’s one of the female branch of the family, you know, that married into the banks, and of course they all feel it ought to be kept together, and Lulu would be a great advantage. But she’s homely as sin, and, so far, they’ve had a pretty hard time persuading me. You understand, don’t you?” “What?” Lily asked, vaguely. Then she drew a deep breath, clenched her curved fingers tightly upon the fur rug and said virulently to herself: “I could do it and sing for joy that I _had_ done it!” However, in the ears of her companion this was only an indistinct murmur. “I mean I suppose you understand about the family and all that,” he said. “My mother’s bound to interfere, of course. If you and I expect to see much of each other after she comes, we’ll have a fight on our hands, because, of course, the family won’t stand for my getting too interested in anybody out here. Naturally, they don’t expect me not to have a good time; but you know what I mean;—they wouldn’t stand for my getting serious, I mean.” He was serious enough just then, however; that was plain. His voice was almost quaveringly plaintive, in fact, as he leaned toward her. “Lily,” he said, “I expect my mother would like you all right if you were my cousin Lulu, or somebody in Lulu’s position; but the way things are—well, of course she isn’t going to. She’s going to make an awful fuss if I try to go about with you at all. But I’m willing to buck up to her and see if we can’t pull it off anyhow. Honestly, I am. How about it?” “What?” she said, absently, still looking forward and not at him. “What did you say?” “My goodness!” he exclaimed, blankly. “I don’t believe you were even _listening_!” “I’m afraid I wasn’t.” At that, a natural resentment deepened the colour in this important young man’s cheeks. “Well, I should think it might be considered worth your while,” he said. “I don’t put too much on being James Herbert McArdle, Third, I believe; but at least I might claim it isn’t a thing that happens every day in the world, exactly—my asking a girl to marry me, I mean.” She turned to him, frowning. “Was that what you were doing?”