She darted away, and Clement signed to Ivinghoe to sit down with him on the bench under the tree.
“I should like this better if you had brought your father’s full assent,” he said.
“There was no time. I only read his face; he will come to-morrow.”
“No time?”
“Yes, to catch the train. I hurried away the moment I learnt that—that her affections were not otherwise engaged. I never saw any one like her. She has haunted me ever since those days at Rockquay; but—but I was told that she cared for your nephew, and I could not take advantage of him in his absence. And now I have but three days more.”
“Whoever told you was under a great error,” said Clement gravely, “and you have shown very generous self-command; but the advantages of this affair are so much the greatest on one side, that you cannot wonder if there is hesitation on our part, till we explicitly know that our poor little girl would not be unwelcome to your parents.”
“I know that no one can compare with her for—for everything and anything,” stammered Ivinghoe, breaking from his mother’s language into his father’s, “and my father admires her as much as I do—almost.”
“But what will he and your mother say to her being absolutely penniless?”
“Pish!”
“And worse—child to a spendthrift, a man of no connection, except on his mother’s side.”