"You've seen it. I make no bones about it. You can believe the very worst. I have fallen utterly and hopelessly in love with her. I am at your mercy." This beginning was not quite what Katherine had expected. In his confident way he had taken matters out of her hands. She had not anticipated a down-right confession. She felt conscious of a little dull and wholly reprehensible ache at her heart. She sighed. "Aren't you pleased, Katherine?" he asked with a man's selfishness. "I suppose I must be--for your sake. But I must also sigh a little. I knew you would be falling in love sooner or later--only I hoped it would be later. But _que veux-tu?_ It is the doom of all such friendships." "I don't see anything like a doom about it, my dear," said he. "The friendship will continue. Viviette loves you dearly." She took up a peach from a dish to her hand, regarded it for a moment, absent-mindedly, and delicately replaced it. "Our friendship will continue, of course. But the particular essence of it, the little sentimentality of ownership, will be gone, won't it?" Austin rose and bent over Katherine's chair in some concern. "You're not distressed, Katherine?" "Oh, no. You have been such a kind, loyal friend to me during a very dark and lonely time--brought sunshine into my life when I needed it most--that I should be a wicked woman if I didn't rejoice at your happiness. And we have been nothing more than friends." "Nothing more," said Austin. She was smiling now, and he caught a gleam of mischief in her eyes. "And yet there was an afternoon last winter--" His face coloured. "Don't throw my wickedness in my face. I remember that afternoon. I came in fagged, with the prospect of dinner at the club and a dismal evening over a brief in front of me, and found you sitting before the fire, the picture of rest and comfortableness and companionship. I think it was the homely smell of hot buttered toast that did it. I nearly asked you to marry me." "And I had been feeling particularly lonely," she laughed. "Would you have accepted me?" "Do you think that it is quite a fair question?" "We have always been frank with one another since our childhood," said he. She smiled. "Has Viviette accepted you?" He broke away from her with a gay laugh, and lit a cigarette. "Your feminine subtlety does you credit, Katherine." "But has she?" "Well, no--not exactly." "Will she?" He brought his hand down on the table. "By heavens, I'll make her! I've got most of the things I've wanted during my life, and it'll be odd if I don't get the thing I want more than all the rest put together. Now answer my question, my dear Katherine," he continued teasingly. "Would you have married me?" The smile faded from Katherine's face. She could not parry the question as she had done before, and it probed depths. She said very seriously and sweetly: