Margaret looks blank.
"She means me," says Mrs. Bethune, with a slight, insolent smile.
"You know, don't you, how desperately in love with Maurice I am?"
"I know nothing," says Miss Knollys, a little curtly.
"Ah, you will!" says Mrs. Bethune, with her queer smile.
"The fact is, Margaret," says Lady Rylton, with some agitation, "that if Maurice doesn't marry this girl, there—there will be an end of us all. He must marry her."
"But he doesn't love—he barely knows her—and a marriage without love——"
"Is the safest thing known."
"Under given circumstances! I grant you that if two people well on in life, old enough to know their own minds, and what they are doing, were to marry, it might be different. They might risk a few years of mere friendship together, and be glad of the venture later on. But for two young people to set out on life's journey with nothing to steer by—that would be madness!"
"Ah! yes. Margaret speaks like a book," says Mrs. Bethune, with an amused air; "Maurice, you see, is so young, so inexperienced——"
"At all events, Tita is only a child."