"Why?" she asked calmly, and he had no answer ready. So he harked back after a while to a lower level.
"That is the most original reason for refusing a man I ever heard," he said whimsically. "Have you any others of the same sort?"
She responded instantly to his mood. "Plenty!" she replied cheerfully. "To begin with, you are far too rich. I am only just beginning to realise how I should hate to have money--besides it is wrong, you know."
"I don't know," he said dryly; "but it is quite easy to divest oneself of money. I never find the slightest difficulty in getting rid of it--so don't let that stand in your way."
It was her turn to laugh--a soft, little laugh with a hint of reproof in it.
"I don't expect you do. Ted is always saying you are reckless. Then there is grandfather; you know he doesn't like you half so much as he likes Ted----"
"The deuce he doesn't!" assented Ned, his sudden pang of jealousy softened by his sense of the comic; "but you are surely not going to marry Ted in order to please your grandfather?"
She looked at him disapprovingly, "I might marry some one worse; Ted is a dear."
He felt exasperated. "Yes! he is an uncommonly good fellow; but--you don't happen to love him. And you do--at least I think you do"--he felt that certainty might overpower his self-control--"love me."
She took no notice of this, but went on argumentatively.