Mrs. Milbrey scorned to be dazzled by her triumph.
"Nonsense! Shepler asked her last night to marry him."
"It's bewildering! I never dreamed—"
"I've expected it for months. I could tell you the very moment when the idea first seized the man—on the yacht last summer. I was sure she interested him, even before his wife died two years ago."
"Margaret, it's too good to be true!"
"If you think it is I'll tell you something that isn't: Avice practically refused him."
Her husband pushed away his plate; the omission of even one regretful glance at its treasures betrayed the strong emotion under which he laboured.
"This is serious," he said, quietly. "Let us get at it. Tell me if you please!"
"She came to me and cried half the night. She refused him definitely at first, but he begged her to consider, to take a month to think it over—"
Milbrey gasped. Shepler, who commanded markets to rise and they rose, or to fall and they fell—Shepler begging, entreating a child of his! Despite the soul-sickening tragedy of it, the situation was not without its element of sublimity.