"What is it that seems so strange, dearest?"
"Why, that a man like you, who have seen so much of the world, who must have seen and known so many ladies, both in England and abroad, should really profess to care about a foolish, frivolous girl like me."
"You are neither foolish nor frivolous. Besides which, you are different from any one whom I ever met before. More than all, you are my fate."
"Your fate, Mr. Van Duren!"
"Yes, the one woman out of all the wide world whom, uncounted ages ago, it was fated, or fore-ordained, that I should love."
"Now you are going further than I can follow you," said Miriam, with a smile. "Perhaps, at the same time, it was fore-ordained that I should reject your suit."
"You do not know how terribly in earnest I am, or you would not laugh at me."
"Indeed, Mr. Van Duren, I am not laughing at you. But pray resume your seat."
"Not till you have told me the best or the worst. Not till you have given me some word of hope, or told me that I must never hope again."
"Mr. Van Duren," said Miriam, with more earnestness than she had yet used, "your offer has come upon me so suddenly that I know not what to say. I think you can hardly expect me to give you an answer to so serious a question without giving me time to consider what that answer must be. Not now, not to-night--can I answer you either one way or the other. Two or three days at the least I must claim, to think over all that you have said to me, and to discover, if it be possible for me to do so, what my feelings are in a matter that concerns my future welfare so closely."