"He won't say no, my dear. Basil loves me too well to thwart my wishes. But it is his part to woo and yours to listen. Let him ask."
"I should have to wait a long time before he did that," said Mara dryly. "I wish to know the best or worst at once," and she left the room, still smiling strangely. Mr. Colpster could not understand why she smiled. But, then, neither he nor anyone else understood the girl, who seemed to hang between two worlds, the Seen and the Unseen, without making use of either, so indifferent was her attitude towards all things.
As it happened, Patricia was busy attending to the servants, as it was her housekeeping hour. Mara was thus enabled to find Basil alone, for when Miss Carrol was available he constantly followed at her heels like a faithful and adoring dog. But Patricia would not appear for some time, so the sailor read the daily paper in the smoking-room and solaced himself for the absence of the eternal feminine with his pipe. Mara knew where to find him, and entered in her light, noiseless way, to perch on the arm of his chair like a golden butterfly. Without any preamble she plunged into the reason for her intrusion into bachelor quarters.
"Basil, will you marry me?" she asked, coldly and calmly and unexpectedly.
Looking on his cousin as a child, the young man thought that she was joking, and laughed when he answered: "Of course. Will we start now for the church on the moors where all the Colpsters have been married?"
"I am in earnest, Basil," she said seriously.
"So am I," he rejoined lightly, "only it will be the marriage of Bottom and Titania with you, my airy elf," and he slipped his arm round her waist, looking at her with a smile on his handsome face.
Mara, who disliked being touched, even by Patricia, much more by this confident male thing--as she called Basil in her mind--slipped off the arm of the chair and floated like thistledown into the centre of the room.
"Don't be silly, Basil. I have just come from my father. He wants me to marry you or Theodore. I hate Theodore, and would sooner die than become his wife, but I told father that I would ask you to become my husband."
Basil saw that she really meant what she said, and, moreover, knew of his uncle's strong desire to unite the two branches of the dwindling Colpster family. Laying aside his pipe, he grew red to the roots of his closely-cropped hair. "I--I--don't want to," he stuttered ungallantly, and feeling very much confused. "I--I hope you don't mind."