"Win me?" she gasped, her lips parted in wonder.
"Precisely. Now I'm looking at it differently. I don't mind telling you that I'm in love with you—desperately in love. It's been so with me ever since that day in the Park. I loved you as a duchess or a princess, and without hope. Now, I—I—well, I'm going to hope. Perhaps Vos Engo has the better of me just now, but I'm in the lists with him—with all of them. If I get you out of this place—and myself as well—I want you to understand that from this very minute I am trying to win you if it lies in the power of any American to win a girl who has suitors among the nobility. Will—will you give me a chance—just a ghost of a chance? I'll try to do the rest."
"Are—are you really in earnest?" she murmured, composure flying to the winds.
"Yes; terribly so," he said gently. "I mean every word of it. I do love you."
"I—I cannot talk about it now, Mr. King," she fluttered, moving away from him in a sudden panic. Presently he went over to her. She was standing near the candle, staring down at the flame with a strangely preoccupied expression in her eyes.
"Forgive me," he said. "I was hasty, inconsiderate. I—"
"You quite took my breath away," she panted, looking up at him with a queer little smile.
"I know," he murmured.
Her troubled gaze resumed its sober contemplation of the flame.
"How was I to tell—" she began, but checked herself. "Please, Mr. King, you won't say anything more to me about—about it,—just now, will you? Shall we talk of our plans for to-night? Tell me about them."