“What do you mean?”
“Oh, she’s a decent enough little girl, I can see. But you’re a silly fellow for all that. You couldn’t have deceived me, you know. If there’d been anything—you understand?—I should have spotted it at once.”
“I don’t relish this kind of talk,” observed Widdowson acidly. “In plain English, you supposed I was going to marry some one about whom I couldn’t confess the truth.”
“Of course I did. Now come; tell me how you got to know her.”
The man moved uneasily, but in the end related the whole story. Mrs. Luke kept nodding, with an amused air.
“Yes, yes; she managed it capitally. Clever little witch. Fetching eyes she has.”
“If you sent for me to make insulting remarks—”
“Bosh! I’ll come to the wedding gaily. But you’re a silly fellow. Now, why didn’t you come and ask me to find you a wife? Why, I know two or three girls of really good family who would have jumped, simply jumped, at a man with your money. Pretty girls too. But you always were so horribly unpractical. Don’t you know, my dear boy, that there are heaps of ladies, real ladies, waiting the first decent man who offers them five or six hundred a year? Why haven’t you used the opportunities that you knew I could put in your way?”
Widdowson rose from his seat and stood stiffly.
“I see you don’t understand me in the least. I am going to marry because, for the first time in my life, I have met the woman whom I can respect and love.”