“Perhaps it is more than we think,” said Bice, still bitterly; “sometimes I feel almost sure it is.”
“It would give us some new dresses, to be sure,” Kitty said, with a general readiness to assent to her sister’s ideas, “and a piano. I should enjoy a piano.”
“It would do more than that,” Bice said abruptly. And then her voice softened, the beautiful eyes grew wistful; she put her hands on the girl’s shoulders, and looked into her face. “Oh, Kitty,” she said, “if we only had a little money, you or I, we could save poor Clive without—”
She stopped suddenly, and Kitty looked startled, for something in Bice’s manner thrilled through her.
“But,” she said hesitatingly, “Oliver will do that. He has promised, hasn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Bice, very slowly.
Alas! but it was she who had to promise also. “Then it’s all right. Oliver can do anything.”
“Only if he is to do this, I must marry him.”
She still spoke slowly, but her voice sounded strained and unnatural. Kitty answered cheerfully—
“Yes, I know. But you like him, don’t you? You made up your mind the last time he was here, and there has been nothing to make you change. And you always wanted to live in England. I don’t think Oliver would be at all a bad sort of person to marry.”