“And no man ever asked me to marry him before,” answered the honest Hetty, like a child, and with an amused tone in her voice. “It is very odd, isn't it?”
Dr. Eben was confounded. In spite of himself, he felt the contagion of Hetty's merry and unsentimental view of the situation; and it was with a trace of obstinacy rather than of a lover's pain in his tones that he continued:
“But, Miss Gunn, indeed you must not make light of this matter in this way. It is not treating me fairly. With all the love of a man's heart I love you, and have asked you to be my wife: are you sure that you could not love me?”
“I don't really think I could,” said Hetty; “but I shall not try, because I am sure you are mistaken. I am too old to be married, for one thing: I shall be thirty-seven in the fall. That's reason enough, if there were no other. A man can't fall in love with a woman after she's as old as that.”
Dr. Eben laughed outright. He could not help it.
“There!” said Hetty, triumphantly; “that's right; I like to hear you laugh now; for goodness' sake, let's forget all this. I will, if you will; and we will be all the better friends for it perhaps. At any rate, you'll be all the more friend to me for having saved you from making such a blunder as thinking you were in love with me.”
Dr. Eben was on the point of persisting farther; but he suddenly thought to himself:
“I'd better not: I might make her angry. I'll take the friendship platform for the present: that is some gain.”
“You will permit me then to be your friend, Miss Gunn,” he said. “Why, certainly,” said Hetty, in a matter-of-fact way: “I thought we were very good friends now.”
“But you recollect, you distinctly told me I was to come only as physician to Mrs. Little,” retorted the doctor.