Mary shook her head. “We should quarrel if I told you.”
“And if he won’t wed me,” Sophia continued, “then mamma will have something to say, I promise you.”
“Nothing is more certain than that,” agreed Miss Challoner.
“Oh, not to Vidal!” Sophia said. “To the Duke himself! And I think Vidal will be glad to marry me to prevent the scandal. For there is my uncle as well as mamma, you know, and he would create a rare to-do. Vidal will have to marry me.”
Miss Challoner drew a deep breath, and lay back on her pillows. “My dear, I’d no notion you were so romantic,” she drawled.
“I am, I think,” nodded Sophia innocently. “I have always thought I should like to elope.”
Miss Challoner continued to observe her. “Do you care for him?” she asked. “Do you care at all?”
“Oh, I like him very well, though to be sure, I think Mr. Fletcher dresses better, and Harry Marshall has prettier manners. But Vidal’s a marquis, you see.” She took a last complacent look at her own image, and jumped into bed. “I’ve given you something to think of now, haven’t I?”
“I rather believe you have,” concurred Miss Challoner.
It was certainly long before she fell asleep. Beside her Sophia lay dreaming of the honours in store for her, but Mary lay staring into the darkness, and seeing before her mind’s eye, a black-browed face, with a haughty thin-lipped mouth, and eyes that seemed to her fancy to look indifferently through her.