"But, pray, why should everything be necessarily at an end?"
"For two or three reasons, Mrs. Toplady. One will suffice. After Miss Tomalin had left the room, Lady Ogram insisted on my making offer of immediate marriage to Miss Bride. Being plainly released from the other obligation, I did so—and Miss Bride gave her consent."
Mrs. Toplady arched her eyebrows, and rippled a pleasant laugh.
"Ah! That, of course, May could not know. I may presume that, this time, the engagement is serious?"
"Undoubtedly," Lashmar replied, grave yet bland.
"Then I can only ask you to pardon my interference."
"Not at all. You have shown great kindness, and, under other circumstances, we should not have differed for a moment as to the course it behooved me to follow."
Dyce had never heard himself speak so magnanimously; he smiled with pleasure, and continued in a peculiarly suave voice.
"I am sure Miss Tomalin will find in you a steadfast friend."
"I shall do what I can for her, of course," was the rather dry answer. "At the same time, I hold to my view of Miss Bride's responsibility. The girl has really nothing to live upon; a miserable hundred a year; all very well when she belonged to the family at Northampton, but useless now she is adrift. To tell you the truth, I shall wait with no little curiosity for Miss Bride's—and your—decision."