“That depends entirely upon you.”
“On me! does it?”
“I do not know what your son may have told you, Lady Lufton. For myself, I do not care to have any secrets from you in this matter; and as he has spoken to you about it, I suppose that such is his wish also. Am I right in presuming that he has spoken to you on the subject?”
“Yes, he has; and it is for that reason that I have taken the liberty of sending for you.”
“And may I ask what he has told you? I mean, of course, as regards myself,” said Lucy.
Lady Lufton, before she answered this question, began to reflect that the young lady was taking too much of the initiative in this conversation, and was, in fact, playing the game in her own fashion, which was not at all in accordance with those motives which had induced Lady Lufton to send for her.
“He has told me that he made you an offer of marriage,” replied Lady Lufton; “a matter which, of course, is very serious to me, as his mother; and I have thought, therefore, that I had better see you, and appeal to your own good sense and judgment and high feeling. Of course you are aware—”
Now was coming the lecture to be illustrated by King Cophetua and Griselda, as Lucy had suggested to Mrs. Robarts; but she succeeded in stopping it for awhile.
“And did Lord Lufton tell you what was my answer?”
“Not in words. But you yourself now say that you refused him; and I must express my admiration for your good—”