"Has no one ever proposed to you before?" he said.
"No," she whispered.
"Well, it's all right," he said kindly. "Don't think I am going to trade on your inexperience. If you want to say 'No' to me, say it, and I'll go. I shall come back again, of course. I shall keep on coming back till you say 'Yes' either to me or to some other man. But I hope it won't be another man, Chris. I want you so badly myself."
"Do you?" she said. "How—how funny!"
"Why funny?" he asked.
She glanced at him speculatively; her panic was beginning to subside.
"You must be ever so much older than I am," she said.
"I am thirty-five," he said.
"And I'm not quite twenty-one." A sudden dimple appeared in the cheek nearest to him. "Fancy me getting married!" said Chris, with a chuckle. "I can't imagine it, can you?"
"You will soon get used to the idea," he said. "Anyhow, there is nothing in it to frighten you—that is, if you marry the right man."
She nodded thoughtfully, her brief mirth gone. "But, Mr. Mordaunt, how is one to know?"