"I'm ashamed of the Consolidated"--he smiled.

"That's a comfortable position to be able to take." She fixed him for a
moment with her charming frown of interrogation. "You won't mind my asking
these questions? I'm trying to decide whether you are too much of a pirate
for me. Perhaps when I've made up my mind you won't want me," she added.

"Oh, I'll want you!" Then coolly: "Shall we wait till you make up your
mind before announcing the engagement?"

"Don't be too sure," she flashed at him.

"I'm horribly unsure."

"Of course, you're laughing at me, just as you would"--she tilted a sudden
sideways glance at him--"if I asked you WHY you wanted to marry me."

"Oh, if you take me that way----"

She interrupted airily. "I'm trying to make up my mind whether to take you
at all."

"You certainly have a direct way of getting at things."

He studied appreciatively her piquant, tilted face; the long, graceful
lines of her slender, perfect figure. "I take it you don't want the
sentimental reason for my wishing to marry you, though I find that amply
justified. But if you want another, you must still look to yourself for
it. My business leads me to appreciate values correctly. When I desire you