But Mr. Jerningham jumped up from his seat. “Marry me, dear girl! Marry me, I beg of you! You are the only woman in the world! You are the most beautiful ever created and, beyond all question, the cleverest. You are a genius! Why isn't all mankind on its knees worshiping? Will you marry me? Wait! Don't speak. I know what your answer will be.”
“You do?” She smiled inscrutably.
Imagine the Sphinx—if the Sphinx were Irish and very beautiful—with those eyes and those lips! Guess? You couldn't guess where your soul was—or whose!
“Yes, I do,” answered Jerningham, confidently. “I will write it on a piece of paper and prove it. But first tell me this: Will you take Mrs. Deering's case?”
She looked at him, and said, “Yes.”
“Very well.” He wrote something on one of his cards, doubled it so she could not see what he had written, and gave it to her, saying, “Now answer me: Will you marry me?”
She looked at him a long time. He met her gaze squarely. Presently she said, very seriously:
“Not yet!”
“Look in the card,” he said, also very seriously.
She did. It said: Not yet!