"I know no reason. In truth there is no reason. What he says about Lord Ongar is simply some part of his scheme. You see what his scheme is, Harry?"
"What is his scheme?"
"Simply this—that I should be frightened into becoming his wife. My darling bosom friend Sophie, who, as I take it, has not quite managed to come to satisfactory terms with her brother,—and I have no doubt her price for assistance has been high,—has informed me more than once that her brother desires to do me so much honour. The count, perhaps, thinks that he can manage such a bagatelle without any aid from his sister; and my dearest Sophie seems to feel that she can do better with me herself in my widowed state, than if I were to take another husband. They are so kind and so affectionate; are they not?"
At this moment tea was brought in, and Clavering sat for a time silent with his cup in his hand. She, the meanwhile, had resumed the old position with her face upon her hands, which she had abandoned when the servant entered the room, and was now sitting looking at him as he sipped his tea with his eyes averted from her. "I cannot understand," at last he said, "why you should persist in your intimacy with such a woman."
"You have not thought about it, Harry, or you would understand it. It is, I think, very easily understood."
"You know her to be treacherous, false, vulgar, covetous, unprincipled. You cannot like her. You say she is a dragon."
"A dragon to you, I said."
"You cannot pretend that she is a lady, and yet you put up with her society."
"Exactly. And now tell me what you would have me do."
"I would have you part from her."