How the blood in her young veins was racing and singing with laughter! How thoroughly she was enjoying something to which she could give neither reason nor name! But how satisfying it all was—whatever it was that amused her in this man's uncertainty, and in the faint traces of an irritation as unreasoning as the source of it!
"Really, Captain Selwyn," she said, "you are not one of those old-fashioned literary landmarks who objects through several chapters to a girl's marrying—are you?"
"Yes," he said, "I am."
"You are quite serious?"
"Quite."
"You won't let me?"
"No, I won't."
"Why?"
"I want you myself," he said, smiling at last.
"That is flattering but horridly selfish. In other words you won't marry me and you won't let anybody else do it."