"You wouldn't tell if there was." "I'd tell _you_." "Me ?"--with a sudden slump in his remaining stock of reassurance.
"Certainly.

I tell you and Nina things of that sort.

And when I have fully decided to marry I shall, of course, tell you both before I inform other people." How the blood in her young veins was racing and singing with laughter! How thoroughly she was enjoying something to which she could give neither reason nor name! But how satisfying it all was--whatever it was that amused her in this man's uncertainty, and in the faint traces of an irritation as unreasoning as the source of it! "Really, Captain Selwyn," she said, "you are not one of those old-fashioned literary landmarks who objects through several chapters to a girl's marrying--are you ?" "Yes," he said, "I am." "You are quite serious ?" "Quite." "You won't _let_ me ?" "No, I won't." "Why ?" "I want you myself," he said, smiling at last.
"That is flattering but horridly selfish.

In other words you won't marry me and you won't let anybody else do it." "That is the situation," he admitted, freeing his line and trying to catch the crinkled silvery snell of the new leader.

It persistently avoided him; he lowered the rod toward Miss Erroll; she gingerly imprisoned the feathered fly between pink-tipped thumb and forefinger and looked questioningly at him.
"Am I to sit here holding this ?" she inquired.
"Only a moment; I'll have to soak that leader.