"I don't know that it can be called a turn of luck. Florence has a very nice fortune of her own—"
"And she wants to give it to this penniless reprobate. It is just one of those cases in which you must deal roundly with a girl. She has to be frightened, and that's about the truth of it."
After this, Lady Mountjoy did succeed in getting Florence alone with herself into her morning-room. When her mother told her that her aunt wished to see her, she answered first that she had no special wish to see her aunt. Her mother declared that in her aunt's house she was bound to go when her aunt sent for her. To this Florence demurred. She was, she thought, her aunt's guest, but by no means at her aunt's disposal. But at last she obeyed her mother. She had resolved that she would obey her mother in all things but one, and therefore she went one morning to her aunt's chamber.
But as she went she was, on the first instance, caught by her uncle, and taken by him into a little private sanctum behind his official room. "My dear," he said, "just come in here for two minutes."
"I am on my way up to my aunt."
"I know it, my dear. Lady Mountjoy has been talking it all over with me. Upon my word you can't do anything better than take young Anderson."
"I can't do that, Uncle Magnus."
"Why not? There's poor Mountjoy Scarborough, he has gone astray."
"There is no question of my cousin."
"And Augustus is no better."