She pulls forward a little chair near her, as if to show Margaret that she must say, and Miss Knollys comes quickly to her. Marian Bethune is Lady Rylton's real niece. Margaret is her niece by marriage.
A niece to be proud of, in spite of the fact that she is thirty years of age and still unmarried. Her features, taken separately, would debar her for ever from being called either pretty or beautiful; yet there have been many in her life-time who admired her, and three, at all events, who would have gladly given their all to call her theirs. Of these one is dead, and one is married, and one—still hopes.
There had been a fourth. Margaret loved him! Yet he was the only one whom Margaret should not have loved. He was unworthy in all points. Yet, when he went abroad, breaking cruelly and indifferently all ties with her (they had been engaged), Margaret still clung to him, and ever since has refused all comers for his sake. Her face is long and utterly devoid of colour; her nose is too large; her mouth a trifle too firm for beauty; her eyes, dark and earnest, have, however, a singular fascination of their own, and when she smiles one feels that one must love her. She is a very tall woman, and slight, and gracious in her ways. She is, too, a great heiress, and a woman of business, having been left to manage a huge property at the age of twenty-two. Her management up to this has been faultless.
"Now, how can I help you?" asks she, looking at Lady Rylton. "What is distressing you?"
"Oh! you know," says Mrs. Bethune, breaking impatiently into the conversation. "About Maurice and this girl! This new girl! There," contemptuously, "have been so many of them!"
"You mean Miss Bolton," says Margaret, in her quiet way. "Do you seriously mean," addressing Lady Rylton, "that you desire this marriage?"
"Desire it? No. It is a necessity!" says Lady Rylton. "Who could desire a daughter-in-law of no lineage, and with the most objectionable tastes? But she has money! That throws a cloak over all defects."
"I don't think that poor child has so many defects as you fancy," says Miss Knollys. "But for all that I should not regard her as a suitable wife for Maurice."
Mrs. Bethune leans back in her chair and laughs.
"A suitable wife for Maurice!" repeats she. "Where is she to be found?"