"You see," she went on, reverting to the original topic, "people who know Sara are likely to credit her with motives you appear to be totally ignorant of. She set her heart on my brother Challis, when she was a great deal younger than she is now, and she got him. If age and experience count for anything, how capable she must be by this time."
He was too wise to venture an opinion. "I assure you she has no designs on me."
"Perhaps not. But I fancy that even you could not escape as St. Anthony did. She is most alluring."
"You don't like her."
"Obviously. And yet I don't dislike her. She has the virtue of consistency, if one may use the expression. She loved my brother. Leslie says she should have hated him. We have tried to like her. I think I have come nearer to it than any of the others, not excepting Leslie, who has always been her champion. I suppose you know that he was your rival at one time."
"He mentioned it," said Booth drily.
"I should have been very much disappointed in her if she had accepted him."
"Indeed?"
"I sometimes wonder if Sara spiked Leslie's guns for him."
"I can tell you something you don't know, Vivian," said he. "Sara was rather keen about making a match there."