"Let me speak. You are not in earnest. It is your good pleasure to take a great many things in life in a joking spirit. Now, for instance, when you sent me that bald, disgraceful, girlish essay, you played a practical joke which a less patient man would never have forgiven. To-night, when you talked that rubbish to that crowd of really clever men and women, you played another practical joke, equally unseemly."
"I am not a society person, Mr. Franks. I cannot talk well in company. You told me to talk, and I did the best I could."
"Your chatter was nearly brainless; the people who listened to you to-night won't put up with that sort of thing much longer. It is impossible with a mind of your order that you should really wish to talk nonsense. But I am not going to scold you. I want to know if you will marry me."
"If I will be your wife?" said Florence. "Why do you wish it?"
"I think it would be a suitable match."
"But do you love me?"
Franks paused when Florence asked him that direct question.
"I admire you very much," he said.
"That has nothing to do with it. Admiration is not enough to marry on. Do you love me?"