"Well?"—breathlessly,—"and then——?"
"I said,"—with the gayest little laugh imaginable,—"I thought he was loved in return."
"You thought, Georgie? What a strange answer! I do think you are a little bit coquette! I am so glad, though. Do you know, I guessed all along how it would be?"
"So did I. I knew very well how it would end. I felt he would fall a victim sooner or later. It is rather soon, isn't it? But of course it is only natural I should know about it?"
"Yes, only natural." Clarissa can think of nothing else to say. Not like this had she felt when——. To talk of him as a victim!
"I hope everything will be settled soon," goes on Miss Broughton, gayly, "'Happy is the wooing that isn't long adoing.' And I should like the marriage to be soon; wouldn't you? I think next time I see him I shall ask him about it."
"Oh, Georgie, don't! Indeed I would not, if I were you," exclaims Clarissa, in an agony. Good gracious! Is she lost to all sense of shame? "He won't like it. It is surely the man's part to speak first about that."
"Oh, very well,"—amicably. "But there couldn't be any harm in my speaking about it."
"Just as much as in any other woman's."
"Not so much as if it was Cissy?"