"Yes; although my interest in the negotiation was naturally less than yours. Do not stand, Inglefield; what we have to say to each other will occupy a few minutes."
Mark Inglefield, with inward anxiety and a cheerful exterior, drew a chair to the table and sat down.
"Do you love the young lady?" inquired Mr. Manners.
"If I did not," replied Mark Inglefield, wondering at the strangeness of the question, "should I desire to marry her?"
"That is scarcely an answer," observed Mr. Manners.
And now Mark Inglefield suspected that a battle was impending, and that something serious was coming.
"Certainly I love her," he said. "Is there any doubt of it, and is that the difficulty?"
"That is not the difficulty, but it strikes me now as singular that love was never mentioned in the course of the interview."
For the life of him Mark Inglefield could not help remarking:
"I was not aware that you were given to sentiment."