There had been a pause in the conversation, which had related mainly to a very pretty young girl named Lizzie Dangan, the daughter of the head gamekeeper at Westwood Court—the man who had touched his hat as the dog-cart drove through the entrance gates. The silence was suddenly broken by Cyril's exclaiming:
“You are a first-rate chap, Dick. Why shouldn't you marry Agnes?”
Dick's eyes flashed upon him for a moment, and it seemed to Cyril that he detected a certain curious drawing in of his breath that sounded like the stifling of a sigh. The exclamation which came from him immediately afterwards seemed incongruous—it was an exclamation that suggested the putting aside of an absurdity.
“Oh, you may say 'psha!' as often as you please,” said Cyril; “it will not alter the fact that Agnes and you would get on very well together. I know that she thinks a lot of you—so do I.”
“That's very kind of you,” said Dick. “But you're talking nonsense—worse than nonsense. Agnes has given her promise to marry my brother Claude. Let us say no more about it.”
“It's all very well for you to say, 'We'll say no more about it,”' cried Cyril, with an air of responsibility—the responsibility of a brother who refuses to allow the affections of his sister to be trifled with. “It's all very well for you to say that; but when I think how long this sort of shilly-shallying has been going on—well, it makes me wild. Agnes is now over thirty—think of that—over thirty, and what's more, she's not getting any younger. I'm anxious to see her settled. I think I've a right to ask if she's engaged to marry Claude. Where's Claude now? Does any sane person believe that he is still in the land of the living?”
“Your sister believes it, and she is sane enough. However, I'm not going to discuss the question with you, my friend; or, for that matter, with anybody else.”
“That's all very well; the fact remains the same. Here's a fine house thrown away upon a bachelor, and there's Agnes, who would suit you down to the ground, waiting”—
“Waiting—waiting—that is exactly her position.”
“Waiting—yes; but for what? For what, I ask you as a man of the world? Your brother is dead, beyond a shadow of a doubt, and here you are alive and hearty. Doesn't it say something in the Bible that when a chap's brother dies”—