"Rather!" he said, slowly—"Are you going to accept his offer?"
Her eyes opened widely.
"I? My Amadis, how can you think it? I would not accept it for all the world! He would load me with benefits—he would surround me with luxuries—but I do not want these. I like to work for myself and be independent." He laid a brush lightly in colour and began to use it with delicate care.
"You are not very wise," he then said—"It's a great thing for a young girl like you who are all alone in the world, to be taken in hand by such a man as Blythe. He's a statesman,—very useful to his country,—he's very rich and has a splendid position. His wife's sudden death has left him very lonely as he has no children,—you could be a daughter to him, and it would be a great leap upwards for you, socially speaking. You would be much better off under his care than scribbling books."
She drew a sharp breath of pain,—all the pretty colour fled from her cheeks.
"You do not care for me to scribble books!" she said, in low, stifled accents.
He laughed.
"Oh, I don't mind!—I never read them,—and in a way it amuses me! You are such an armful of sweetness—such a warm, nestling little bird of love in my arms!—and to think that you actually write books that the world talks about!—the thing is so incongruous—so 'out of drawing' that it makes me laugh! I don't like writing women as a rule—they give themselves too many airs to please me—but you—"
He paused.
"Well, go on," she said, coldly.