Mrs. Folyat sighed with relief and triumph.
“Of course you couldn’t,” she said. “He is such a common man. . . . Let us play Bézique.”
Mary fetched the cards and they played until Francis came up at ten o’clock. She let him take her hand and went downstairs to the kitchen to brew her mother’s chocolate. She had lost all interest in Mr. Hargreave, and she felt nothing at all.
In her bedroom that night she found it quite easy to write to him. She said that she trusted him to understand that she could not marry him, and that it would be best in the circumstances if he found another teacher for Violet. He had (she continued) always been very kind to her. She was very grateful to him, and would think well of him, but her duty lay towards her father and mother.
So, without any ill-feeling she slipped into the part designed for her by her mother.
As she was writing to Mr. Hargreave, her mother said to Francis:
“My dear, what do you think? That horrid old Hargreave has actually proposed to Mary. Of course she refused him.”
“Poor Mary,” said Francis.