"To do me a favour."
"Certainly, dear, if I can."
"You have the money, Mr. Lancelot, instead of me—I don't want it, and then you could——"
"Now, now, Mary Ann," he interrupted, laughing nervously, "you're getting foolish again, after talking so sensibly."
"Oh, but why not?" she said plaintively.
"It is impossible," he said curtly.
"Why is it impossible?" she persisted.
"Because——" he began, and then he realised with a start that they had come back again to that same old mechanical series of questions—if only in form.
"Because there is only one thing I could ever bring myself to ask you for in this world," he said slowly.
"Yes; what is that?" she said flutteringly.