"No!" she said, "I am afraid I couldn't do that, but if it really gives you any satisfaction to hear it, I think that my search—I told you that I had come to look for some one, didn't I?—will be over to-night, and then it will not be necessary for me to do this sort of thing."
"I am glad," he answered heartily. "I am glad, that is to say, unless—"
"Unless what?"
"Unless it means your going back to America."
She raised her eyes to his.
"And how does that concern you?" she asked, simply.
"I wish to God I knew why it should!" he answered, almost bitterly. "Do you know what a fool I have been making of myself for the last week or so? I have given up my club and all my friends, refused every invitation, and spent all my time going about from restaurant to restaurant, café to café, hoping somewhere to come across you."
"Mr. Mildmay!"—she began.
"Oh! you need not look like that," he interrupted. "It's perfectly true. I think you knew it upon the steamer. I suppose that last day I made myself a nuisance to you, with my advice and fears, and all that sort of thing. Well, you see, now I ask no questions. I am content to take you as you are. You want some one to look after you, Virginia. Will you marry me?"
She set down her glass, which was half raised to her lips, and looked at him with wide open eyes and trembling lips.