"Why not?"
"I haven't dared to look."
Billy Stark glanced at the floor as if he wanted to get down and roll. Then he lay back in his chair and went gasping off. Madam Fulton watched him seriously, that unquenchable spark still in her eyes.
"I don't know what you can do next," said Billy, getting out his pocket-handkerchief, "unless you become engaged to me."
Madam Fulton laid down her tatting, to look at him in a gentle musing.
"It would plague Electra," she owned.
"Come on, Florrie, come on! Get up early to-morrow morning, and we'll post off and be married."
"No," said Madam Fulton absently, still considering, "I don't want to be married. Harsh measures never did attract me. But I'd like very well to be engaged. Tell you what, Billy, we could be engaged for the summer, and when you go back to England we'll call it off."
Billy rose, and possessed himself of one of her hands. He kissed it ceremoniously, and returned it to its tatting.
"You do me infinite honor," he announced, with more gravity than she liked.