‘O, indeed!’ cried Fanny. ‘Really? Bless me, how much some people know of some subjects! They say every one has a subject, and I certainly seem to have hit upon yours, Amy. There, you little thing, I was only in fun,’ dabbing her sister’s forehead; ‘but don’t you be a silly puss, and don’t you think flightily and eloquently about degenerate impossibilities. There! Now, I’ll go back to myself.’
‘Dear Fanny, let me say first, that I would far rather we worked for a scanty living again than I would see you rich and married to Mr Sparkler.’
‘Let you say, my dear?’ retorted Fanny. ‘Why, of course, I will let you say anything. There is no constraint upon you, I hope. We are together to talk it over. And as to marrying Mr Sparkler, I have not the slightest intention of doing so to-night, my dear, or to-morrow morning either.’
‘But at some time?’
‘At no time, for anything I know at present,’ answered Fanny, with indifference. Then, suddenly changing her indifference into a burning restlessness, she added, ‘You talk about the clever men, you little thing! It’s all very fine and easy to talk about the clever men; but where are they? I don’t see them anywhere near me!’
‘My dear Fanny, so short a time—’
‘Short time or long time,’ interrupted Fanny. ‘I am impatient of our situation. I don’t like our situation, and very little would induce me to change it. Other girls, differently reared and differently circumstanced altogether, might wonder at what I say or may do. Let them. They are driven by their lives and characters; I am driven by mine.’
‘Fanny, my dear Fanny, you know that you have qualities to make you the wife of one very superior to Mr Sparkler.’
‘Amy, my dear Amy,’ retorted Fanny, parodying her words, ‘I know that I wish to have a more defined and distinct position, in which I can assert myself with greater effect against that insolent woman.’
‘Would you therefore—forgive my asking, Fanny—therefore marry her son?’