'Grilled, 'm? Right-o. Well, as I was sayin' about Miss Marryun. She's gotta ring in 'er fortune and she will get married, but it will be to a dark man who'll cross water to meet her. She's like me. She isn't fated to meet the right one yet.'
This was a subtle reference to her own chaotic love affairs. Elizabeth never has any lack of young men.' But they are like ships that pass in the night (her night out as a rule), and one by one they drift off, never stopping to cast anchor in her vicinity. You know what I mean. Elizabeth can't keep her young men. They seem attracted to her at first, but, as I say, after a very short time they drift.
'We shall see wot we shall see,' went on Elizabeth, 'there aint no knowin' an' there aint no tellin'. But wot I ses is, if this 'ere propogal don't come orf this evenin', I gotta plan. Of course, one marries accordin' to Fate, but sometimes it doesn't do no 'arm to give Fate an 'elpin' 'and, like.'
Nodding darkly, she melted out. I did not at the time attach any significance to her final words. How was I to guess at those schemes which were even then fermenting in her mind and ended by involving not only Marion and Another, but the entire family?
CHAPTER V
Marion gave me what the newspapers term 'a verbatim report' of the interview which took place between her and George Harbinger. She omitted no detail. As far as I understand, when I left them he was standing with his right foot on the fender and the other on the rug, and his elbow on the mantelpiece. She was sitting in the easy chair to the left of the fireplace, in the full glow of the shaded lamp, knitting a jumper. There was a pause and then he began, 'You never seem idle for a minute. How nimble your fingers are!'
Marion knitted a little harder.
'I have always hoped,' he went on, 'that the woman I married would be fond of her needle. There is something so restful in the idea of coming home in the evening to see one's companion sitting at the fireside engaged in such womanly tasks.'
Marion said that, no doubt, after a hard day at assessing, such a sight would be soothing to a man.