"Oh, I say, won't you think this over?" burst forth Mr. Lighton, quite unconscious of the doubtful compliment he had just paid the object of his affections. "I'm most awfully in love with you, indeed I am. You know that, don't you?"
"I know that you think you are in love with me, just now," answered Lynn, gravely. "But, in my twenty-eight years of life, quite a few people have told me that they were in love with me and would never be happy without me. And they have married some one else in a few years' time and have never thought of me, again."
"I'm not like that," said Mr. Lighton, eagerly. "Upon my soul, I'm not. You may think I'm fickle or easily suited. I'm not. I don't like anybody but you and I never will. It seems pretty hard when a fellow's waited until over thirty before he has run across any one he fancied—and then to be turned down, after all."
"It has happened before."
"Why, no, it hasn't!" said Lighton, indignantly.
"I mean to other people."
"Oh! See here, why won't you have me? I suppose I'm not clever enough for you. Is that the trouble?"
"No, no indeed. I'm stupid, myself, frightfully stupid in lots of ways. That isn't it, at all. It's just that I don't care enough about you."
Mr. Lighton regarded her with some perplexity.
"I say—I'd like awfully to say something if you won't think it rude."