"I thought you would like it best."
"Why should I like it best? Of course mamma knows all about it. Augusta would have come with me just to see me here, only that she cannot walk out just at present." Then he said something to her about the Monument, expressed his admiration of the Prince's back, abused the east wind, remarked that the buds were coming on some of the trees, and suggested that the broad road along by the Round Pond would be drier than the little paths. It was not interesting, as Gertrude felt; but she had not expected him to be interesting. The interest she knew must be contributed by herself. "Ben," she said, "I was so happy to hear what you said to mamma the other day."
"What did I say?"
"Why, of course, that, as papa has given his consent, our engagement is to go on just as if—"
"Just as if what?"
"As if we had found the clergyman at Ostend."
"If we had done that we should have been married now," suggested Batsby.
"Exactly. And it's almost as good as being married;—isn't it?"
"I suppose it comes to the same thing."
"Hadn't you better go to papa again and have it all finished?"