"It is so hard for me to say anything about it, aunt. What can I say but that I don't want to be a burden to any one?"
"That is a position which very few women can attain,--that is, very few single women."
"I think it would be well if all single women were strangled by the time they are thirty," said Clara with a fierce energy which absolutely frightened her aunt.
"Clara! how can you say anything so wicked,--so abominably wicked!"
"Anything would be better than being twitted in this way. How can I help it that I am not a man and able to work for my bread? But I am not above being a housemaid, and so Captain Aylmer shall find. I'd sooner be a housemaid, with nothing but my wages, than take the money which you say he is to give me. It will be of no use, aunt, for I shall not take it."
"It is I that am to leave it to you. It is not to be a present from Frederic."
"It is the same thing, aunt. He says you are to do it; and you told me just now that it was to come out of his pocket."
"I should have done it myself long ago, had you told me all the truth about your father's affairs."
"How was I to tell you? I would sooner have bitten my tongue out. But I will tell you the truth now. If I had known that all this was to be said to me about money, and that our poverty was to be talked over between you and Captain Aylmer, I would not have come to Perivale. I would rather that you should be angry with me and think that I had forgotten you."
"You would not say that, Clara, if you remembered that this will probably be your last visit to me."
"No, no; it will not be the last. But do not talk about these things. And it will be so much better that I should be here when he is not here."
"I had hoped that when I died you might both be with me together,--as husband and wife."
"That is nonsense, aunt. It is indeed, for neither of us wish it." A lie on such a subject from a woman under such circumstances is hardly to be considered a lie at all. It is spoken with no mean object, and is the only bulwark which the woman has ready at her need to cover her own weakness.
"From what he said yesterday," continued Mrs. Winterfield, "I think it is your own fault."
"Pray,--pray do not talk in that way. It cannot be matter of any fault that two people do not want to marry each other."