"I only meant to point out that the distance is nothing. And as to what you were advising me about getting married—"
"I didn't mean to advise you, Mr Rubb!"
"I thought you said so."
"But, of course, I did not intend to discuss such a matter seriously."
"It's a most serious subject to me, Miss Mackenzie."
"No doubt; but it's one I can't know anything about. Men in business generally do find, I think, that they get on better when they are married."
"Yes, they do."
"That's all I meant to say, Mr Rubb."
After this he sat silent for a few minutes, and I am inclined to think that he was weighing in his mind the expediency of asking her to become Mrs Rubb, on the spur of the moment. But if so, his mind finally gave judgment against the attempt, and in giving such judgment his mind was right. He would certainly have so startled her by the precipitancy of such a proposition, as to have greatly endangered the probability of any further intimacy with her. As it was, he changed the conversation, and began to ask questions as to the welfare of his partner's daughter. At this period of the day Susanna was at school, and he was informed that she would not be home till the evening. Then he plucked up courage and begged to be allowed to come again,—just to look in at eight o'clock, so that he might see Susanna. He could not go back to London comfortably, unless he could give some tidings of Susanna to the family in Gower Street. What was she to do? Of course she was obliged to ask him to drink tea with them. "That would be so pleasant," he said; and Miss Mackenzie owned to herself that the gratification expressed in his face as he spoke was very becoming.
When Susanna came home she did not seem to know much of Mr Rubb, junior, or to care much about him. Old Mr Rubb lived, she knew, near the place of business in the New Road, and sometimes he came to Gower Street, but nobody liked him. She didn't remember that she had ever seen Mr Rubb, junior, at her mother's house but once, when he came to dinner. When she was told that Mr Rubb was very anxious to see her, she chucked up her head and said that the man was a goose.