"I don't quite say that. But there are tremendous difficulties."
"Is she married? Oh, I do believe she's married. Oh, Savile! How extraordinary and horrid of you!"
"Oh, it's all right, Felicity," said Savile, with a reassuring nod, at which she laughed.
"I'm sure it is, dear. But who on earth is it?"
Savile took a photograph out of his pocket, and blushingly showed it to his sister, with his head turned away.
As she looked at it her face expressed the most unfeigned bewilderment.
"Aunt William? But this is very sudden.... Oh, it's some mistake, surely! You can't be in love with Aunt William!"
With a howl of fury Savile snatched the portrait from her.
It was a quaint, faded photograph of an elderly aunt of his taken in the early seventies. It represented a woman with an amiable expression and a pointed face; parted hair, with a roll on the top, and what was in those days known as an Alexandra curl on the left shoulder. She was leaning her head on her hand, and her elbow on a vague shelf or balcony. The photograph was oval in shape, and looked as if the lady were looking out of a window. At the base of the window was a kind of board, on which was written in her own handwriting, magnified (in white letters, relieved on black), the beautiful words, "Yours truly, Mary Crofton."
"You are an idiot, Felicity!" said Savile angrily. "You make fun of everything! I gave it you by mistake. I took it from Aunt William's album for a joke. Give it me."