'On the contrary,' I answered, 'the trouble is—that I understand you perfectly.'
'No, yah don't. Look heah.' He bent forward quite romantically. 'I'm going to be perfectly frank. Of course yah know that when I came on board this ship I came—to checkmate yah.'
'Of course,' I replied. 'Why else should you and Higginson have bothered to come here?'
He rubbed his hands together. 'That's just it. You're always clevah. You hit it first shot. But there's wheah the point comes in. At first, I only thought of how we could circumvent yah. I treated yah as the enemy. Now, it's all the othah way. Miss Cayley, you're the cleverest woman I evah met in this world; you extort my admiration.'
I could not repress a smile. I didn't know how it was, but I could see I possessed some mysterious attraction for the Ashurst family. I was fatal to Ashursts. Lady Georgina, Harold Tillington, the Honourable Marmaduke, Lord Southminster—different types as they were, all succumbed without one blow to me.
'You flatter me,' I answered, coldly.
'No, I don't,' he cried, flashing his cuffs and gazing affectionately at his sleeve-links. ''Pon my soul, I assuah yah, I mean it. I can't tell you how much I admiah yah. I admiah your intellect. Every day I have seen yah, I feel it moah and moah. Why, you're the only person who has evah out-flanked my fellah, Higginson. As a rule I don't think much of women. I've been through several London seasons, and lots of 'em have tried their level best to catch me; the cleverest mammas have been aftah me for their Ethels. But I wasn't so easily caught: I dodged the Ethels. With you, it's different. I feel'—he paused—'you're a woman a fellah might be really proud of.'
'You are too kind,' I answered, in my refrigerator voice.
'Well, will you take me?' he asked, trying to seize my hand. 'Miss Cayley, if you will, you will make me unspeakably happy.'
It was a great effort—for him—and I was sorry to crush it. 'I regret,' I said, 'that I am compelled to deny you unspeakable happiness.'