She sighed deeply.
"If you were to be married, Sir Edgar—Cousin Edgar, I like to say best—then I must go."
"I do not see the necessity."
"Ah! you do not understand; women are all jealous. I have grown so accustomed to perform a hundred little services for you, they make the pleasure and sunshine of my life. To be able to do some little thing to help you is the highest earthly joy that I can ever know. When you are married, Sir Edgar, your wife will take all this happiness from me."
"I do not see why," I replied, dryly, inwardly wishing myself safe in Clare's room.
"Ah! you do not understand—men never can understand the love of women. Wives, above all, are so very jealous. Fancy, if ever I wanted to make your tea, or get anything ready for you, she would be angry, and I should be wretched."
"In that case you must make tea for Clare instead of me."
"If I am anywhere near you, I must always attend to you before every one and anything in the wide world," she said, impulsively.
"You are making very sure that my wife will not like you," I said. "What if I have no wife?"
She shook her head gravely.