"He isn't intended to--to--? You know what I mean."
"You had a great deal better say poor Popplecourt!--or poor governor, or poor Lady Cantrip."
"But a hundred countesses can't make your sister marry a man she doesn't like."
"Just that. They don't go the right way about it."
"Leave her alone. Let her find out gradually that what she wants can't be done."
"And so linger on for years," said Lady Mabel reproachfully.
"I say nothing about that. The man is my friend."
"I never knew anybody yet that was proud of his friends. I like him well enough, but I can quite understand that the governor should object."
"What would your father say if you wanted to marry someone who hadn't a shilling?"
"I should object myself,--without waiting for my father. But then,--neither have I a shilling. If I had money, do you think I wouldn't like to give it to the man I loved?"
"But this is a case of giving somebody else's money. They won't make her give it up by bringing such a young ass as that down here. If my father has persistency enough to let her cry her eyes out, he'll succeed."
"And break her heart. Could you do that?"
"Certainly not. But then I'm soft. I can't refuse."
"Not if the person who asks me is in my good books. You try me."
"Give me that ring off your finger," she said. He at once took it off his hand. "Of course you know I am in joke. You don't imagine that I would take it from you?" He still held it towards her. "Lord Silverbridge, I expect that with you I may say a foolish word without being brought to sorrow by it. I know that that ring belonged to your great-uncle,--and to fifty Pallisers before."
"And it would be wholly useless to me, as I could not wear it."
"Of course it would be too big," said he, replacing the ring on his own finger. "But when I talk of any one being in my good books, I don't mean a thing like that. Don't you know there is nobody on earth I--" there he paused and blushed, and she sat motionless, looking at him expecting, with her colour too somewhat raised,--"whom I like so well as I do you?" It was a lame conclusion. She felt it to be lame. But as regarded him, the lameness at the moment had come from a timidity which forbade him to say the word "love" even though he had meant to say it.
