"I'll bet you ten to one he hasn't."
Olivia took another card and wrote rapidly. "Do you suppose," she said, trying to speak casually, "that his wanting to help papa out has anything to do with that?"
"I shouldn't wonder. I shouldn't wonder at all."
"What could it have?"
"Oh, don't ask me! How should I know? Men are so queer. He's getting some sort of satisfaction out of it, you may depend."
Drusilla answered as she would have liked to be answered were she in a similar position. That an old admirer should come to her aid like a god from the machine would have struck her as the most touching thing in the world. As she wheeled round again to her task it was not without a pang of wholly impersonal envy at so beautiful a tribute. She had written two or three cards before she let fall the remark:
"And now poor, dear old mother is manœuvering to have me marry him."
The idea was not new to Olivia, so she said, simply, "And are you going to?"
"Oh, I don't know." Drusilla sighed wearily, then added: "I sha'n't if I can help it."
"Does that mean that you'll take him if you can't do better?"