"Well, I don't quite follow you—yet."
"Look here, Philip," she resumed briskly, "I am willing to receive Angela for her holidays"—this was an unexpected concession. "She can come up for a week-end at first; if she pleases me I will give her a home—when she leaves school; but on payment. I may as well have the money as strangers. My jointure is but moderate, and I have great expenses. Angela will require a maid, and to be suitably dressed and taken about and properly introduced, as befits my granddaughter. What do you think of my proposal?"
"I think it is an excellent idea, and I agree to it most heartily," he answered; "that is, if you approve of Angela, and she is happy with you."
"Oh, she is sure to be happy with me," was the vainglorious reply; "and of course I shall feel the greatest interest in her, and take good care that she makes a brilliant match. She shall marry to please me."
If Philip knew anything of Angel, there would be two opinions on that subject.
"She will be a far more congenial companion than Eva, who, since her silly love affair with a doctor she met at Aix, has been the personification of seven wet blankets."
"Why did she not marry him?" inquired the simple bachelor.
"Because I put my foot down. A widower with two children—a mere nobody, too. Eva declared that he was the best, most benevolent and brilliant of men, and devoted to her. But that was rubbish; he only wanted her ten thousand pounds."
After this visit there were several teas and luncheons in Hill Street, not a few conferences in the drawing-room, and confidences in the conservatory. On one of these occasions—when all the preliminaries had been successfully arranged—Lady Augusta plumed herself like one of her own canaries as she remarked:
"It was a lucky day for you, Philip, when you met me in Bond Street. I have relieved you of your 'young girl of the sea,' otherwise I'm sure I don't know what would have been your fate—such an impossible position too—you, quite a young man, guardian to a pretty girl; you would either have had to marry her—or get a chaperon."