'It was straightforward, at all events—if it was all true!' There was the faintest laugh in her tone as she spoke the last words.
'It's true, right enough, though I didn't expect that I should be talking to you about this sort of thing to-night.'
'The effect on Mrs. Rushmore was extraordinary, positively fulminating,' Margaret said more lightly. 'She says I ought to break off my engagement at once, and marry you! Fancy!'
'That's very kind of her, I'm sure,' observed Mr. Van Torp.
'I don't think so. I like it less and less, the more I think of it.'
'Well, I'm sorry, but I suppose it's natural, since you've concluded to marry him, and it can't be helped. I wasn't going to say anything against him, and I wouldn't say anything for him, so there was nothing to do but to explain, which I did. I'm sorry you think I did wrong, but I should give the same answer again.'
'Mrs. Rushmore thinks that Konstantin is a designing foreigner because he's a Greek man of business, and that [{173}] you are perfection because you are an American business man.'
'If I'm perfection, that's not the real reason,' said Van Torp, snatching at his first chance to steer out of the serious current; but Margaret did not laugh.
'You are not perfection, nor I either,' she answered gravely. 'You are famous in your way, and people call me celebrated in mine; but so far as the rest is concerned we are just two ordinary human beings, and if we are going to be friends we must understand each other from the first, as far as we can.'
'I'll try to do my share,' said Van Torp, taking her tone.