‘You don’t wish him to know at once?’
‘We had better wait a little. You know,’ she added laughing, ‘that my legacy is only in name mine as yet. The will hasn’t been proved. And then the money will have to be realised.’
She informed him of the details; Jasper listened with his eyes on the ground.
They were now sitting on chairs drawn close to each other. It was with a sense of relief that Jasper had passed from dithyrambs to conversation on practical points; Marian’s excited sensitiveness could not but observe this, and she kept watching the motions of his countenance. At length he even let go her hand.
‘You would prefer,’ he said reflectively, ‘that nothing should be said to your father until that business is finished?’
‘If you consent to it.’
‘Oh, I have no doubt it’s as well.’
Her little phrase of self-subjection, and its tremulous tone, called for another answer than this. Jasper fell again into thought, and clearly it was thought of practical things.
‘I think I must go now, Jasper,’ she said.
‘Must you? Well, if you had rather.’