"I really think they are rather well suited," said May, again calmly supercilious.
"It may be so. I had almost thought that—how shall I express it?" Mrs. Toplady searched for a moment. "Perhaps Lady Ogram might have made a suggestion, which Mr. Lashmar, for some reason, did not feel able to disregard. He has quite a chivalrous esteem for Lady Ogram, haven't you noticed? I like to see it. That kind of thing is rare nowadays. No doubt he feels reason for gratitude; but how many men does one know who can be truly grateful? That's what I like in Mr. Lashmar; he has character as well as intellect."
"But how do you mean, Mrs. Toplady?" inquired May, losing something of her polish in curiosity. "Why should my aunt have wanted him to marry Miss Bride?"
"Ah, that I don't know. Possibly she thought it, knowing him as she does, really the best thing for him. Possibly—one could make conjectures. But one always can."
May puzzled over the hint, her brow knitted; Mrs. Toplady regarded her with veiled amusement, wondering whether it would really be necessary to use plainer words. The girl was not dull, but perhaps her small experience of life, and her generally naive habit of mind, obscured to her what to the more practised was so obvious.
"Do you mean," said May, diffidently, "that she planned it out of kindness to Miss Bride? Of course I know that she likes Miss Bride very much. Perhaps she thought there would never be a better opportunity."
"It might be so," replied the other, absently.
"Miss Bride is very nice, and very clever," pursued May, sounding the words on the thinnest possible note. "But one didn't think of her as very likely to marry."
"No; it seemed improbable."
There was a pause. As if turning to quite another subject, Mrs. Toplady remarked: