"He asked me to marry him."
Verley snorted.
"Anything else?"
A lump came up stranglingly in my throat.
"He—kissed—me!" The words came with difficulty.
"Damn him!" cried young Verley Marchmont, clenching his hands.
There was a long silence between us after that. He had been kneeling all this time by my chair, and at last he said:
"I don't blame you for leaving this accursed hole, and I wish I were going with you. I wish I were not so desperately poor. Hang it all!" he added, with a poor little laugh. "I don't get much more than you do."
"I don't care anything about money," I said. "I like people for themselves."
"Do you like me, Nora?" He had never called me Nora till this night.