"That's exactly what I understand. You're not even making a pretence of loving me?"
"Miss Truscott, as you put it, I'm a business man. I have money, you have money----"
"Let's put the lot together and make a pile. Really, that's not a bad idea on the whole." It was the young lady who gave this rather unexpected conclusion to his sentence. Then she looked at him steadily with those great eyes of hers, whose meaning for the life of him he could not understand. "I suppose that all you want from me is 'Yes'; and that in complete indifference as to whether I like you or do not?"
"If you didn't like me you wouldn't be sitting here."
"Really, that's not a bad idea again. You arrive at rapid conclusions in your own peculiar way. I suppose if I told you that I could like a man--love him better than my life--you would not understand."
"That sort of thing is not my line. I'm not a sentimental kind of man. I say a thing and mean a thing and when I say I'll do a thing it's just as good as done."
"Then all you want me to be is--Mrs. Ely?"
"What else do you suppose I want you to be? It's amazing how even the most sensible women like to beat about the bush. Here have I asked you a good five minutes to be my wife, and you're just coming to the point. Why can't you say right out--Yes or No."
Miss Truscott shrugged her shoulders.
"I suppose it doesn't matter?"