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“I wouldn’t be too sure,” she warned demurely. “You may lose on a technicality.”

He drew his chair a little nearer to her side and turned over the pages of a book lying on her work-table. On the fly-leaf was inscribed in a man’s writing: “To the dear little woman whose friendship is worth a fortune.”

Another book beside it bore the inscription: “With the love of all the firm, including the boys,” and a volume of poems above it was dedicated to the young person “with the high regards and stanch affection” of some other masculine person.

Will Carman pushed aside these evidences of his sweetheart’s popularity with his own kind and leaned across the table.

“Alice,” said he, “once upon a time you admitted that you loved me.”

A blush suffused the young person’s countenance.

“Did I?” she queried.

“You did, indeed.”

“Well?”

“Well! If you love me and I love you—”

“Oh, please!” protested the girl, covering her ears with her hands.

“I will please,” asserted the young man. “I have come here tonight, Alice, to ask you to marry me—and at once.”