"Oh, I shouldn't worry over that, if I were you!" said Timothy kindly. "Of course, if you insist, I'll enumerate the various things which attract me to you, but they really haven't got much to do with it. To be thoroughly vulgar, we just clicked. Or didn't we?"
Her face quivered; she gave a rather convulsive nod. "Yes, but -"
"There you are, then. You know, for an intelligent girl, you say some remarkably stupid things. You'd be properly stymied if I asked you what you saw in me to fall in love with, wouldn't you?"
A flicker of humour shone in her eyes. "No, I shouldn't," she replied. "Anyone can see what I fell for at a glance! Exactly what about fifty other girls have fallen for!"
"You are exaggerating," said Mr. Harte, preserving his sang-froid. "Not much, of course, but slightly. Forty three is the correct number, and that includes my niece. I'm afraid she may not take very kindly to our marriage, by the way. She says she is going to marry me herself, but of course that's impossible. If we had only lived in medieval times I could have got a dispensation, I expect. As it is —'
"You are a fool!" interrupted Miss Birtley, laughing in spite of herself. "Nor do I think that your niece is the only member of your family who wouldn't take kindly to our marriage."
"You never know. It's within the bounds of possibility that your family may not take kindly to me."
"I have no family," she said harshly.
"What, none at all?"
"I have an uncle, and his wife. I don't have anything to do with them."