Immediately the gentleman became a little rose.
"May I ask you for an answer to my question?"
"You haven't asked me a question yet."
"Will you be my wife?"
The question was put in a rather louder key than, in such cases, is understood to be the rule. Miss Truscott raised her head, and for some moments kept her glance fixed upon the gentleman, as though she were trying to read something in his face. Then she lowered her glance and made answer thus--
"Frankly--you say you are a business man--let us, as you suggest, understand each other in a business kind of way. In asking me to be your wife, you are not asking for--love?"
As she spoke of love her lips gave just the tiniest twitch.
"I believe that a wife is supposed to love her husband--as a rule."
"In your creed love comes after marriage?"
"At this present moment I'm asking you to be my wife."