"You shall do nothing of the sort, my dear. If necessary, I can do it; but there is no hurry."
"It must be settled before next week, unless you want a fuss; I tell you that."
"It shall be settled; but I must talk to Alice first. It is surely possible she may be in love with the man?"
Mrs. Woodward shook her head wisely.
"But why, in heaven's name, Maria? He is handsome--gentlemanly--well born. Why should she not love him?"
"Because she is in love with Jack."
"God bless my soul!"
[CHAPTER XXIV.]
When Paul Macleod left Mrs. Vane's drawing-room that afternoon she told herself that she could, for once, afford to sit with folded hands and let the world go its own way for a time. Everything seemed working for her, so there was no need for her to work for herself. The question of those letters could very well wait for a time. For all she knew to the contrary, the lawyers might have similar proof of little Paul's legitimacy; if they had not, why they ought to have. Unless, indeed, that marriage certificate had nothing to do with the boy at all. That in itself was conceivable with such a woman as Jeanie Duncan must have been. Anyhow, for the present, the child was in comfortable circumstances, since Dr. Kennedy had taken him in charge, and, as Marjory mentioned in her letter, he was to come to London and become a scholar at her school. The first thing was to see this foolish, ridiculous engagement broken off, and then if the big Paul were wise, and realised that both love and money were at his command, it might be possible to tell him the truth. But under no other circumstances, since none could console him as she could for the loss of Gleneira. Therefore, for the sake of everybody concerned, the best thing that could happen was that she should be Paul's wife. A great tenderness showed in her face at the very thought. "Poor Paul," she said half aloud; "he would be quite happy with me, quite content, and I, oh! surely I deserve something after all these years? I am getting tired of doing everything for people I do not care about, as I have done all my life long."
And it was true. In all the trivial details of life she was as thoroughly unselfish a woman as ever stepped, ready at a moment's notice to weary herself out for the sake of making the world more pleasant to others.