"Thank you," he said simply, but his tone was better than a paean of praise. Then the softness left his eyes. There was aggressiveness and a hint of irony in his voice as he said stiffly:
"My--my father has given me to understand that you will do me the honor to marry me."
A passion of anger shook the girl. She valiantly forced back the tears which threatened, rose and faced him defiantly. Her slender fingers smoothed out the long plumes of her fan. There should be no subterfuge now, she determined, no cause for recrimination later.
"Your father, doubtless, has told you also that my father is willing to buy your name and social position for me with a portion of his fortune. A sort of fifty-fifty arrangement, isn't it?" she added flippantly, with the faintest flicker of her bronze-tipped lashes. Courtlandt shrugged.
She took a step back and clenched her hands behind her. Her beautiful eyes were brilliant with scorn, her heart pounded. It seemed as though it must visibly shake her slender body as she answered:
"Why not? If we speak the truth now it may save complications later. You know that my father wants me to marry you and--and why. I frankly confess that I sympathize with his ambitions. I want the best of life in my associations. Your father is in difficulties of one sort--my father is in difficulties of another sort--if a lack of family background can be called a difficulty--and it appears that with our help they can accommodate one another. I'd do anything for Dad--he has done so much for me." She set her teeth sharply in her under lip to steady it.
"Then--then you are not afraid to marry without love?" His eyes were inscrutable.
"Without love? For the man I marry? No, not as long as I have no love for any other. I might love a man when I married him, and then--love comes unbidden, oftentimes unwanted and pouf!--it goes the way it came, and no one can stop it. You know that yourself."
"Not if it is real love, the love of a man for the one woman," he defended.
"Is there such a thing? I wonder?" skeptically.
If he felt a temptation to retaliate he resisted it.
"Then I may conclude that you accept me?" he prompted with frigid courtesy.
"Yes, that is----" a nervous sob caught at her voice. "If--if you will agree to my conditions. Dad has promised me an income of a hundred thousand a year. I will keep half of it in my possession, the other half you are to have to use as you please."