“I advise you to do so,” she said, stealing backward towards the door.  “You are a very interesting widower.  A wife would spoil you.  Consider the troubles of domesticity, too.”

“I like troubles.  They strengthen—­Aha!” (she had snatched at the knob of the door, and he swiftly put his hand on hers and stayed her).  “Not yet, if you please.  Can you not speak out like a woman—­like a man, I mean?  You may withhold a bone from Max until he stands on his hind legs to beg for it, but you should not treat me like a dog.  Say Yes frankly, and do not keep me begging.”

“What in the world do you want to marry me for?”

“Because I was made to carry a house on my shoulders, and will do so.  I want to do the best I can for myself, and I shall never have such a chance again.  And I cannot help myself, and don’t know why; that is the plain truth of the matter.  You will marry someone some day.”  She shook her head.  “Yes, you will.  Why not marry me?”

Agatha bit her nether lip, looked ruefully at the ground, and, after a long pause, said reluctantly, “Very well.  But mind, I think you are acting very foolishly, and if you are disappointed afterwards, you must not blame me.”

“I take the risk of my bargain,” he said, releasing her hand, and leaning against the door as he took out his pocket diary.  “You will have to take the risk of yours, which I hope may not prove the worse of the two.  This is the seventeenth of June.  What date before the twenty-fourth of July will suit you?”

“You mean the twenty-fourth of July next year, I presume?”

“No; I mean this year.  I am going abroad on that date, married or not, to attend a conference at Geneva, and I want you to come with me.  I will show you a lot of places and things that you have never seen before.  It is your right to name the day, but you have no serious business to provide for, and I have.”

“But you don’t know all the things I shall—­I should have to provide.  You had better wait until you come back from the continent.”

“There is nothing to be provided on your part but settlements and your trousseau.  The trousseau is all nonsense; and Jansenius knows me of old in the matter of settlements.  I got married in six weeks before.”

“Yes,” said Agatha sharply, “but I am not Henrietta.”

“No, thank Heaven,” he assented placidly.

Agatha was struck with remorse.  “That was a vile thing for me to say,” she said; “and for you too.”

“Whatever is true is to the purpose, vile or not.  Will you come to Geneva on the twenty-fourth?”

“But—­I really was not thinking when I—­I did not intend to say that I would—­I—­”

“I know.  You will come if we are married.”

“Yes.  If we are married.”

“We shall be married.  Do not write either to your mother or Jansenius until I ask you.”

“I don’t intend to.  I have nothing to write about.”