My heart fell fathoms deep; yet I felt how wise I had been to consult Annabel before speaking to Fay. Arthur, looking at the matter from the man's point of view, did not see the injustice of tying a young woman to an old man; but Annabel, looking at it from the woman's standpoint, evidently did.
"She is so young," I said.
"And so inexperienced," my sister added.
"That is what I feel. She has seen no society of her own class, except Blathwayte and ourselves."
"Exactly, Reggie, and nothing but good society teaches a girl savoir faire. Of course, even a girl as young as Fay who had seen more of the world would be different; but she came here straight out of the schoolroom."
How well Annabel understood, I thought to myself, and how exactly she looked at the matter from my point of view! She really was a wonderful woman. "Then you think even at her age—if she had seen more of the world and had had more experience of life—I might have asked her to marry me without making a mistake which would spoil both our lives?"
"I do indeed, Reggie. But as it is she is so very ignorant and unsophisticated."
There was a pause, which I filled up by spoiling my right boot through poking the fire with it. Then Annabel said, apparently à propos of nothing: "Fay hasn't any money—at least, not any to speak of."
How well my sister read my thoughts, I said to myself. It was Fay's lack of wealth—if she did not marry me—that weighed on my mind. Wildacre had left his children about eight hundred a year apiece, but that was not enough to keep my darling as she ought to be kept. Still I admit I was surprised that this should have occurred to Annabel.
"But anyhow you have enough," she went on. "Papa left an adequate fortune to endow a baronetage."