"I am glad you have guessed what I was going to say, Miss Wedmore, though I should not have put it quite in that way. And why should you not want to hear it? I should have thought that even you must be not quite indifferent to any man's honest feelings of esteem and admiration toward you!"
Doreen was looking at him helplessly, with wide-open eyes. Did he really think any girl was ever moved by this sort of address, deliberately uttered, with the words well chosen, well considered? As different as possible from the abrupt, staccato method used by Dudley in the dear old days!
"Oh, I'm not indifferent at all!" said she, quickly. "I'm never indifferent to anything or anybody. But I'm sorry, very sorry that—that you should feel—"
She stopped short, looked at him for a moment curiously, and asked with great abruptness:
"Do you feel anything in the matter? Really feel, I mean? I don't think you do; I don't think you can. You couldn't speak so nicely, if you did."
He looked at her with gentle reproach. His was not a very tempestuous feeling, perhaps, but it was genuine, honest, sincere. He thought her the most splendid specimen of handsome, healthy well-brought-up womanhood he had ever met, and he thought also that the beneficent influence of the Church, exercised through the unworthy medium of himself, would mold her into a creature as near perfection as was humanly possible.
Her way of receiving his advances was perplexing. He was not easily disconcerted, but he did not answer her immediately. Then he said softly:
"How could I speak in any way but what you call 'nicely' to you? To the lady whom I am asking to be my wife?"
Doreen looked startled.
"Oh, don't, please! You don't know what a mistake you're making. I'm not at all the sort of wife for you, really! Indeed, I couldn't recommend myself as a wife to anybody, but especially to you."