"Oh!"
"Don't think that I speak from sudden impulse. I have loved you for years, but I wished to wait until you were old enough to listen to me."
"And you think I am old enough now?" she said, with a faint smile. "Mamma thinks me quite a girl still."
"You are old enough to marry, if you wish, Marion."
"Marry?" She laughed outright. "Oh, St. John, don't say that. Why, I don't intend to marry in a long, long time—if at all."
His face fell, and he bit his lip. Certainly this was not the answer he had expected.
"But I want you!" he burst out, still more awkwardly. "I want to—to protect you from—er—from Jack."
"Protect me from Jack?"
"Yes, Marion. You know what he is, a mere nobody."
"Jack is my brother."