Mrs. Delarayne tried, while smiling politely, to introduce as little encouragement as possible into her expression.
"Between you and I," the baronet continued, "it isn't as if we had a whole lifetime before us. You may have,—I haven't. These delays are a little unwise at our time of life."
He caught her hand and for some reason, possibly his great agitation, pressed her finger-nails deep into the convex bulb of his large hot thumb, as if he were intent upon testing their sharpness.
Mrs. Delarayne removed her hand. "Joseph, I had hoped you were not going to refer to this again for some while. I have told you hundreds of times, or more, that a woman cannot marry with decency a second time when she has two strapping daughters who have not yet married once."
Sir Joseph shrugged his shoulders.
"It's all very well," pursued the widow, "but it is difficult enough for Cleo to forgive my having married at all. I could not possibly confront her with a second husband before she, poor girl, had met her first. Oh no!—it would be too great an insult. I'd die of shame. No, before you have me you'll have to get my daughters married. That bargain I strike with you."
He smiled ecstatically. "Promise?"
"I promise."
He bent forward and kissed her very clumsily, and Mrs. Delarayne by blowing her nose was able deftly to wipe her mouth without his noticing the movement.
"What is that young fool, my secretary, doing?" he enquired at last. "Did I not bring him and Cleo together all through the spring at Brineweald Park?"