If fate has made me a thief, I am very sorry.

I have proposed to Lady Maggie that she accompany me back to China.

It is my great desire that she should become my wife." Nigel felt himself curiously tongue-tied.

There was something in the other's measured speech, so fateful, so assured, that it seemed almost as though he were speaking of pre-ordained things.

Much that had seemed to him impossible and unnatural in such an idea disappeared from that moment.
"You tell me this," Nigel began-- "I announce it to you as the head of the family," Prince Shan interrupted.
"You tell it to me also," Nigel persisted, "because you have heard the rumours which were at one time very prevalent--that Lady Maggie and I were or were about to become engaged to be married." "I have heard such a rumour only very indirectly," Prince Shan confessed, "and I cannot admit that it has made any difference in my attitude.