:) 'Here's Miss
Petroleum's father, with a million and a half--only child--order a
suit of new clothes and go and ask her to marry you!' And you will
look at him with a helpless sigh, and go. Your father will select your
wife, sir, and you'll take her, like a good boy, when you're told. I
shouldn't wonder now, but that it is to select a wife for you, and a
husband for Trixy, he is taking this projected trip to Europe."

"Shouldn't you? Neither should I. Never wonder. Against my principles,"
Charley murmurs.

"There are plenty of titled aristocracy abroad--so I am told--ready to
silver-gild their coronets by a union with plutocracy. Plenty Lady
Janes and Lady Marys ready to sell themselves to the highest bidder."

"As Edith Darrell is?"

"As Edith Darrell is. It's all very fine talking of love and devotion,
and the emptiness of life without. Believe me, if one has plenty of
money one can dispense with love. I've read a good many novels, but
they haven't turned my head on _that_ subject. From all I've read,
indeed, I should think it must be a very uncomfortable sort of
intermittent fever, indeed. Don't love anybody except yourself, and it
is out of the power of any human being to make you _very_ wretched."

"A sentiment whose truth is only equaled by its--selfishness."

"Yes, it is selfish; and it is your thoroughly selfish people, who get
the best of everything in this world. I am selfish and worldly--ambitious
and heartless, and all that is abominable. I may as well own it. You'll
find it out for yourself soon."

"A most unnecessary acknowledgment, my dear child--it is patent to the
dullest observer. But, now, Edith--look here--this is serious, mind!"
He raises himself again on his elbow, and looks, with a curious smile
into her darkly-earnest, cynical young face. "Suppose I am madly in
love with you--'madly in love' is the correct phrase, isn't
it?--suppose I am at your feet, going through all the phases of the
potential mood, 'commanding, exhorting, entreating' you to marry
me--you wouldn't say no, would you, Edie? You like me--don't deny it.
You know you do--like me well enough to marry me to-morrow. Would you
refuse me in spite of my dependence on my father, and my empty purse?"

He took her hand, and held it tightly, despite her struggles.

"Would you, Edie?" he says, putting his arm around her waist. "I'm not
a sentimental fellow, but I believe in love. Come! you wouldn't--you
couldn't bid me go."

Her color had risen--that lovely rose-pink color, that lit her
brunette face into such beauty--but she resolutely freed herself, and
met his half-tender, half-merry glance, full.

"I would," she said, "if I--liked you so, that you filled my whole
heart. Let me go, sir, and no more of this nonsense. I know what
I am talking about, and what comes of marrying for love. There was
my own mother, she left a rich and luxurious home, wealthy suitors,
all the comforts and elegances of life, without which life isn't
worth living, and ran away with papa. Then followed long years of
poverty, discomfort, illness, and miserable grubbing. She never
complained--perhaps she wasn't even very unhappy; her's wasn't the
sort of love that flies out of the window when poverty comes in at
the door--she just faded away and died. For myself I have been
dissatisfied with _my_ lot ever since I can remember--pining for
the glory and grandeur of this wicked world. There is but one way
in which they can ever be mine--by marriage. If marriage will not
bring them, then I will go to my grave Edith Darrell."

"Which I don't think you will," Mr. Stuart responded. "Young ladies
like you, who set out on the search-matrimonial with lots of
common-sense, worldliness, selfishness, and mercenary motives,
generally reach the goal. It's a fair enough exchange--so much youth
and good looks for so many thousand dollars. I wish you all success,
Miss Darrell, in your laudable undertaking. It is well we should
understand each other, at once and forever, or even I some day might
be tempted to make a fool of myself. Your excellent counsels, my
dearest cousin, will be invaluable to me, should my lagging footsteps
falter by the way. Edith! where have you learned to be so hard, so
worldly, so--if you will pardon me--so unwomanly?"

"Is it unwomanly?" she repeated dreamily. "Well, perhaps it is. I am
honest at least--give me credit for that. My own hard life has taught
me, books have taught me, looking at my mother and listening to my
step-mother have taught me. I feel old at eighteen--old and tired. I
am just one of those girls, I think, who turn out very good or very
bad women, as fate deals with them. It's not too late yet to draw back,
Charley. Your mother can easily get another young lady to do the
French and German business. You can tell her I don't suit, and leave
me at home."

"Not too late to draw back," he said, with his indolent smile. "Is
there ever such a thing as drawing back at all? What is done is done.
I couldn't go without you now, if I tried. O, don't look alarmed, I
don't mean anything. You amuse and interest me, that is all. You're
something of a study--entirely different from the genus young lady I'm
accustomed to. Only--keep your frankness for Cousin Charley, he's
harmless; don't display it to the rest of the world. It might spoil
your chances. Even senile millionnaires don't care to walk into the
trap, unless the springs are hidden in roses. Come, throw down that
endless sewing, and let's have a walk on the beach. Who knows when we
may see the sun go down, together again, over the classic waters of
Sandypoint Bay."

Edith laughed, but she rose to obey.

"And I thought you were not sentimental. One would think it the Bay of
Naples. However, as we start to-morrow, I don't mind going down and
bidding the old rocks and sands good-by."

She put on her hat, and the two went wandering away together, to watch
the sun set over the sea. In the rosy light of the spring sunset, the
fishing boats drifted on the shining waters, and the fisherman's chant
came borne to their ears.

"It reminds me of that other April evening two years ago, Dithy, when
we came down here to say good-by. You cried then at parting--do you
remember? But you were only sixteen, poor child, and knew no better.
You wouldn't cry now, would you, for any man in the universe?"

"Not for Charley Stuart certainly--he needn't think it."

"He doesn't think it, my pet; he never looks for impossibilities. I
wonder if that night in the snow were to come again if you'd risk your
life now, as you did then?"

"Risk my life! What bosh! There was no risk; and bad as I am, and
heartless as I've grown, I don't think--I _don't_ think I'd walk
away, and leave any poor wretch to die. Yes, Charley, if the night in
the snow came over again, I'd do now as I did then."

"I don't believe it was a kindness after all," Charley responds. "I
have a presentiment that a day will come, Dithy, when I'll hate you.
I shouldn't have suffered much if you had let me freeze to death. And
I've a strong prescience (is that the word) that I'll fall in love
with you some day, and be jilted, and undergo untold torture, and hate
you with a perfect frenzy. It will be a very fatiguing experience, but
I feel in my bones that it is to be."

"Indeed! A Saul among the prophets. I shall not be surprised, however;
it is my usual fate to be hated. And now, as we seem to have drifted
into disagreeable and personal sort of talk, suppose we change the
subject? There is a dory yonder; if your indolent sultanship can bear
the labor