“Indeed it is,” answered Chris hotly, with more energy than she had shown since the beginning of her illness. “I wouldn’t marry him if he were the richest and the most charming person in the world!”
“Then I think you’re very silly.”
Chris laughed a little.
“It’s lucky Mrs. Graham-Shute can’t hear you say so.”
Lilith burst into a laugh of delightful merriment.
“Yes, indeed it is,” she admitted heartily. “It’s the greatest dread of her life that you should become Mrs. John Bradfield, of Wyngham House. And nothing will induce her to believe that you are not trying to bring it about. For my own part,” she went on, prosaically, as Chris shook her head, “I should think much better of you if you were.”
Chris looked at her in amazement.
“What? This from you!” cried she. “They do say, you know, that you are always in love, and always with somebody who hasn’t any money at all.”
“Well, I suppose they’re right. Men who have money are always horrid, aren’t they? Still, if one of the horrid creatures were to ask me, I should have to have him, I suppose,” she went on with a sigh. “And as no girl can ever fall in love with a rich man, I may just as well be in love with a poor man first, and know something of the sentiment.”
“Who is it now?” asked Chris, smiling, and rather interested.