'You are asking me to marry you. Is that what you mean?'
'It is nothing less.'
'Really! When I tell you, Mr. Feilding, that I know you—that I know you—it will be plain to you that the thing is absolutely impossible.'
'To know me,' he replied, showing no outward emotion, 'should make it more than possible. What could I wish better than to be known to you?'
She looked him full in the face. He neither dropped his eyes nor changed colour.
'What could be better for me?' he repeated. 'What could I hope for better than to be known?'
'Oh! This man is truly wonderful!' she cried. 'Must I tell you what I know?'
'It would be better, perhaps. You look as if you knew something to my—actually—if I may say so—actually to my discredit!'
Armorel gasped. His impudence was colossal.
'To your discredit! Oh! Actually to your discredit! Sir, I know the whole of your disgraceful history—the history of the past three or four years. I know by what frauds you have passed yourself off as a painter and as a poet. I know by what pretences you thought to lay the foundation for a reputation as a dramatist. I know that your talk is borrowed—that you do not know art when you see it: that you could never write a single line of verse—and that of all the humbugs and quacks that ever imposed themselves upon the credulity of people you are the worst and biggest.'