“I know that you are very good to me, Mr. Twentyman.”

“I don’t say anything about being good; but I’m true:—­that I am.  I’d take you for my wife tomorrow if you hadn’t a friend in the world, just for downright love.  I’ve got you so in my heart, Mary, that I couldn’t get rid of you if I tried ever so.  You must know that it’s true.”

“I do know that it’s true.”

“Well!  Don’t you think that a fellow like that deserves something from a girl?”

“Indeed I do.”

“Well!”

“He deserves a great deal too much for any girl to deceive him.  You wouldn’t like a young woman to marry you without loving you.  I think you deserve a great deal too well of me for that.”

He paused a moment before he replied.  “I don’t know about that,” he said at last.  “I believe I should be glad to take you just anyhow.  I don’t think you can hate me.”

“Certainly not.  I like you as well, Mr. Twentyman, as one friend can like another,—­without loving.”

“I’ll be content with that, Mary, and chance it for the rest.  I’ll be that kind to you that I’ll make you love me before twelve months are over.  You come and try.  You shall be mistress of everything.  Mother isn’t one that will want to be in the way.”

“It isn’t that, Larry,” she said.

She hadn’t called him Larry for a long time and the sound of his own name from her lips gave him infinite hope.  “Come and try.  Say you’ll try.  If ever a man did his best to please a woman I’ll do it to please you.”  Then he attempted to take her in his arms but she glided away from him round the table.  “I won’t ask you not to go to Cheltenham, or anything of that.  You shall have your own time.  By George you shall have everything your own way.”  Still she did not answer him but stood looking down upon the table.  “Come; say a word to a fellow.”

Then at last she spoke—­“Give me six months to think of it.”

“Six months!  If you’d say six weeks.”

“It is such a serious thing to do.”

“It is serious, of course.  I’m serious, I know.  I shouldn’t hunt above half as often as I do now; and as for the club,—­I don’t suppose I should go near the place once a month.  Say six weeks, and then, if you’ll let me have one kiss, I’ll not trouble you till you’re back from Cheltenham.”

Mary at once perceived that he had taken her doubt almost as a complete surrender, and had again to become obdurate.  At last she promised to give him a final answer in two months, but declared as she said so that she was afraid she could not bring herself to do as he desired.  She declined altogether to comply with that other request which he made, and then left him in the room declaring that at present she could say nothing further.  As she did so she felt sure that she would not be able to accept him in two months’ time whatever she might bring herself to do when the vast abyss of six months should have passed by.