"You seem to be getting round to the state of mind," said he, "where you'll be in danger of marrying our friend Craig." Margaret, her eyes carefully away from him, laughed softly--a disturbingly noncommittal laugh.
"Of course, I'm only joking," continued Arkwright.

"I know YOU couldn't marry HIM." "Why not ?" "Because you don't think he's sincere." Her silence made him feel that she thought this as weak as he did.
"Because you don't love him." "No, I certainly don't love him," said Margaret.
"Because you don't even like him." "What a strange way of advocating your friend you have." Arkwright flushed scarlet.

"I thought you'd quite dismissed him as a possibility," he stammered.
"With a woman every man's a possibility so long as no man's a certainty." "Margaret, you couldn't marry a man you didn't like ?" She seemed to reflect.

"Not if I were in love with another at the time," she said finally.

"That's as far as my womanly delicacy--what's left of it after my years in society--can influence me.