He broke off for a moment, and his manner became diffident.
“Miss Stirling,” he added, “I think I fell in love with you the second or third time I saw you, if not the first, and as I have seen you rather often since then, you can, perhaps, imagine what I feel now. I’m afraid there is no very strong reason why you should look kindly on such a man as I am, but I came here to-night to ask if you would marry me.”
Ida quietly met his gaze. The man was well-favored physically, honest, courteous and considerate, and in many ways she liked him. Indeed, she wondered with a certain uneasiness how far she had allowed the latter fact to become apparent, for it was quite another matter to marry him, as she now realized.
“Is this offer quite spontaneous?” she asked.
Kinnaird flushed a little, but she thought the more of him for the candor with which he answered her.
“In the first place, I believe my mother put the thing into my head,” he admitted. “After that, it got hold of me—and I was rather glad that my people were apparently satisfied that it did. It promised to save trouble, for I should naturally have gone on with it if they had done their utmost to thwart me.”
He broke off abruptly, and Ida met his gaze.
“Thank you,” she said. “The honesty of that admission would have counted a good deal in your favor had the thing been possible.”
The man straightened himself and clenched one hand.
“Ah!” he said. “Then it’s quite out of the question?”