"A man should be conceited, papa. Nobody will think well of him unless he thinks well of himself."
"He came to me in Park Lane."
"What! Mr. Roden?"
"Yes; he came. But I didn't see him. Mr. Greenwood saw him."
"What could Mr. Greenwood say to him?"
"Mr. Greenwood could tell him to leave the house,—and he did so. There was nothing more to tell him. Now, my dear, let there be no more about it. If you will put on your hat, we will go out and walk down to the village."
To this Lady Frances gave a ready assent. She was not at all disposed to quarrel with her father, or to take in bad part what he had said about her lover. She had not expected that things would go very easily. She had promised to herself constancy and final success; but she had not expected that in her case the course of true love could be made to run smooth. She was quite willing to return to a condition of good humour with her father, and,—not exactly to drop her lover for the moment,—but so to conduct herself as though he were not paramount in her thoughts. The cruelty of her stepmother had so weighed upon her that she found it to be quite a luxury to be allowed to walk with her father.
"I don't know that anything can be done," the Marquis said a few days afterwards to his wife. "It is one of those misfortunes which do happen now and again!"
"That such a one as your daughter should give herself up to a clerk in the Post Office!"
"What's the use of repeating that so often? I don't know that the Post Office is worse than anything else. Of course it can't be allowed;—and having said so, the best thing will be to go on just as though nothing had happened."