Claire felt that decency now compelled her to offer a certain acknowledgment. "I want to thank you for those lovely flowers," she said. "They were beautiful, and it was very kind of you to send them."
He began to sway his head slightly from side to side. It was his way of showing nearly every emotion, whether embarrassment, perplexity, chagrin, or even mollification.
"Come, now," he began, "you didn't really think a lot about 'em, did you?"
"I liked them very much," returned Claire. She was watching him, in all his unpleasant details, though very covertly. She was asking herself, in the dispassionate reflectiveness born of her calculating yet feverish ambition, whether she could possibly consent to be his wife if he should ever ask her. The remembrance of his great prospective wealth dealt her more than one thrilling stroke, and yet feelings of self-distrustful dread visited her also. She feared lest she might commit some irreparable mistake. She was still very ignorant of the world in which she desired to achieve note and place. But she had, at the same time, a tolerably definite understanding of some things that she aimed to do. Her talks with Thurston had let in a good deal of light upon her mind. She had not lost a single point in all his explanatory discourse.
"I'm glad you did like 'em," said Brady, examining his radiant rings for an instant. "They cost a heap of stamps," he added, suddenly lifting his head and giving her an intent look. "But I don't mind that. I ain't a close-fisted chap, especially when I'm fond of anybody. I guess you've seen that I think a deal about you. I can't talk flowery, like some chaps, but that don't matter." ... At this point he suddenly took Claire's hand; his face had acquired a still more sulky gloom; it was clouded by an actual scowl. "Look here, now, Miss Twining," he said, "I never expected to get married. I've had some pretty nice girls make regular dead sets at me—yes, I have—but none of 'em ever took my fancy. You did, though. I stuck it out for two or three weeks, and I daresay I kept giving myself clean away all the time. But I saw 't wasn't any use; I'm caught, sure; there ain't any mistake about it. We'll be married whenever you say. I'll do the handsome thing—that is, Father will. Father's crazy to have me settle down. He's worth a lot o' money—I s'pose you know that. He'll like you when he sees you—I ain't afraid he won't. We can have a slam-bang stylish wedding, or a plain, quiet one, just as you choose. And don't you be alarmed about too big a difference between you and I. Father may kick a little at first, but he'll come round when you've met once or twice. He'll see you're a good, sound girl, even if you ain't as high up, quite, as he'd want me to go for. There, now, I've broken the ice, and I s'pose it's all fixed, ain't it?"
Claire had been trying to withdraw her hand, for several moments, from the very firm grasp of this remarkable suitor. But as Brady ended, she literally snatched the hand away, and rose, facing him, contemptuous, and yet calm because her contempt was so deep.
"It is impertinent for you to address me like this," she said, in haughty undertone. "You have no right to take for granted that I will marry you. In the first place, I do not like you; in the second place, I think myself by no means your inferior, but greatly above you as regards breeding, education, and intelligence; and in the third place, I would never consent to be the wife of one whom I do not consider a gentleman."
She at once left the room, after thus speaking, and saw, as she did so, that Brady's face was pale with rage and consternation. His insolent patronage had wounded her more than she knew. On reaching her own room, she had a fit of indignant weeping. But by the time that Sophia and Mrs. Bergemann returned from their drive, she was sufficiently tranquil to betray no sign of past perturbation.
That evening Sophia went to one of her "sociables." A male friend called for her, and they were driven together to the entertainment in question, with superb yet innocent defiance of those stricter proprieties advocated in higher social realms. Mrs. Bergemann retired somewhat early, and Claire was left alone, as it happened, with Thurston, who chanced to drop in a little after nine o'clock. Just before Mrs. Bergemann left the drawing-room, she contrived to whisper, in garrulous aside, with her plump face quite close to Claire's, and all her genial, harmless vulgarity at a sort of momentary boiling-point: "I shouldn't be surprised, dear, if he should pop to-night. And if he does, I ain't sure that you hadn't better have him than Brady, for he's ever so rich, though the other'll get that Sixth Avenu store and two or three millions o' money behind it. Still, please yourself, Claire, and don't forget to leave the hall gas burnin' for Sophia when you go upstairs."
Claire was in a very interrogative mood to-night. "I should like to have Mr. Brady explained a little more fully," she said, when Thurston and herself were again seated side by side.