“I know. Look here, Elsie, I’ve an idea. Why don’t you marry this fellow?”
“Ireen Tidmarsh, are you dotty or what?”
“I’m giving you jolly good advice, and you’ll be a young fool if you don’t take it. He’s rich, and you’d have a splendid position, and after a year or two you’d probably find yourself free to go your own way. He wouldn’t live for ever, either.”
“Don’t,” said Elsie.
“Well, it’s true. You can bet he’s on the look-out for a second wife already—widowers of that age always are.”
“He wouldn’t think of marrying me.”
“Only because he can get what he wants without,” said Irene curtly. “You show him he can’t, and set him thinking a bit. If he’s half as keen on you as you say he is, anyway, the idea’s bound to cross his mind.”
Elsie was rather bewildered, and disposed to be incredulous. She was incapable of having formulated so practical an idea for herself, and it held for her a sense of unreality. “Anyhow, I couldn’t marry an old man like that. I don’t even like him.”
“Whoever you marry, young Elsie, you won’t stick to him,” said Irene cynically. “And if you ask me, the quicker you get a husband the better.”
“That’s what mother says.”