"Lucky, fortunate;" where has the word "happy" gone, that she has forgotten to use it? Clarissa makes no reply. Something in the girl's manner checks her. She is standing there before her, gay, exultant, with all a child's pleasure in some new possession; "her eyes as stars of twilight fair," flashing warmly, her whole manner intense and glad; but there are no blushes, no shy half-suppressed smiles, there is no word of love; Dorian's name has not been mentioned, except as a secondary part of her story, and then with the extremest unconcern.
Yet there is nothing in her manner that can jar upon one's finer feelings; there is no undue exultation at the coming great change in her position,—no visible triumph at the fresh future opening before her; it is only that in place of the romantic tenderness that should accompany such a revelation as she has been making, there has been nothing but a wild passionate thankfulness for freedom gained.
"When are you coming to stay with me altogether?—I mean until the marriage?" asks Clarissa, presently.
"I cannot leave Mrs. Redmond like that," says Georgie, who is always delightfully indefinite. "She will be in a regular mess now until she gets somebody to take my place. I can't leave her yet."
"Dorian will not like that."
"He must try to like it. Mrs. Redmond has been very good to me, and I couldn't bear to make her uncomfortable. I shall stay with her until she gets somebody else. I don't think, when I explain it to him, that Dorian will mind my doing this."
"He will think it very sweet of you," says Clarissa, "considering how you detest teaching, and that."
While they are at tea, Dorian drops in, and, seeing the little yellow-haired fairy sitting in the huge lounging-chair, looks so openly glad and contented that Clarissa laughs mischievously.
"Poor Benedick!" she says, mockingly: "so it has come to this, that you know no life but in your Beatrice's presence!"
"Well, that's hardly fair, I think," says Branscombe; "you, at least, should not be the one to say it, as you are in a position to declare I was alive and hearty at half-past twelve this morning."