For a brief interlude Mrs. Payne returned her gaze with silent yet expressive dignity.
"There's really no occasion to become violent," she observed at last, "particularly in the presence of poor Angela."
"But I like it! I like it," declared Angela, "it is her marriage that I couldn't bear."
Mrs. Payne turned her reproachful look for a moment upon the weaker sister.
"I am very sure, my dear, that we can bear anything the Lord chooses to send," she remarked, "especially when we feel that our cross is for another's good. Is there any reason," she wound up to Laura again, "for the obstinate position you appear to take?"
Laura shook her head.
"I don't take any position," she replied, "I simply decline to be made to marry him, that's all."
"But you like him—I've heard you say so much with my own ears."
"You never heard me say I liked him for a husband."
"It would have been highly indelicate if I had," observed Mrs Payne, "but since he has proposed I may as well impress upon you that any kind of liking is quite sufficient argument for a marriage which would be so suitable in every way. And as to the romantic nonsense—well it all comes very much to the same thing in the long run, and whether you begin by loving a man or by hating him, after six months of marriage you can ask nothing better than to be able to regard him with Christian forbearance."