“Oh, do let me go on. Suppose a girl, Mr. Jerningham—I wish you wouldn’t nod.”
“It was only to show that I followed you.”
“Oh, of course you ‘follow me’, as you call it. Suppose a girl had two lovers—you’re nodding again—or, I ought to say, suppose there were two men who might be in love with a girl.”
“Only two?” asked the philosopher. “You see, any number of men might be in love with—
“Oh, we can leave the rest out,” said Miss May, with a sudden dimple; “they don’t matter.”
“Very well,” said the philosopher, “if they are irrelevant we will put them aside.”
“Suppose, then, that one of these men was, oh, awfully in love with the girl, and—and proposed, you know—”
“A moment!” said the philosopher, opening a note-book. “Let me take down his proposition. What was it?”
“Why, proposed to her—asked her to marry him,” said the girl, with a stare.
“Dear me! How stupid of me! I forgot that special use of the word. Yes?”