She leaned back in her chair. "Then why don't you dignify your soul by being honest with HER?"
"What do you mean?"
For a half-minute she was silent. "Are you and I of the same stripe, after all? Would you marry Sara without loving her, as I would have done by you? It doesn't seem like you, Brandon."
"Good heaven, I'm not going to marry Sara!" he blurted out. "It's never entered my head."
"Perhaps it has entered hers."
"Nonsense! She isn't going to marry anybody. And she knows how I feel toward Hetty. If it came to the point where I decided to marry without love, 'pon my soul, Viv, I believe I'd pick you out as the victim."
"Wonderful combination!" she said with a frank laugh. "The quintessence of 'no love lost.' But to resume! Do you know that people are saying you are to be married before the winter is over?"
"Let 'em say it," he said gruffly.
"Oh, well," she said, despatching it all with a gesture, "if that's the way you feel about it, there's no more to be said."
He was ashamed. "I beg your pardon, I shouldn't have said that."