"It is an impossible position for a girl--completely alone. I cannot allow
it. I feel responsible for you. After all, it would do very well if you
married me. I am not particularly domestic by nature, and should be very
little at home, so you could live here and have a certain position, and I
would come back now and then and see you were getting on all right."

One could not say if he was mocking or no.

"It is too good of you," I said, without any irony. "But I like freedom,
and when you were at home it might be such a bore----"

He leaned back and laughed merrily.

"You are candid, at any rate!" he said.

Mr. Barton came into the room at that moment, full of apologies at being
late. Immediately after, with the usual ceremony, the butler entered and
pompously announced, "Dinner is served, sir." How quickly they recognize
the new master!

Mr. Carruthers gave me his arm, and we walked slowly down the
picture-gallery to the banqueting-hall, and there sat down at the small,
round table in the middle, that always looks like an island in a lake.

I talked nicely at dinner. I was dignified and grave, and quite frank. Mr.
Carruthers was not bored. The chef had outdone himself, hoping to be kept
on. I never felt so excited in my life.

I was apparently asleep under a big lamp, after dinner, in the library, a
book of silly poetry in my lap, when the door opened and he--Mr.