Finally Raymond discovered that his business was suffering. He grew indifferent to the exact hour of leaving his office; took no pride in his well-regulated habits. He began to dislike Cameron and he dreamed of Nancy. Day and night he saw her as the safe and sweet solution of all that was best in him. She held sacred what his inheritance reverenced; she was human and divine; she was his salvation—or Cameron's.
At this point Mrs. Tweksbury gave him an unlooked-for stab.
"Well!" she remarked with a groan—she never sighed, "I guess Clive Cameron has got in at the death!"
She looked gruesome and defeated. Raymond grew hot and cold.
"What do you mean?" he asked, and glared shamelessly.
"I mean," Mrs. Tweksbury confronted Raymond as if repudiating him forever, "I mean that you've let the chance of your life slip through your fingers and fall into the gaping mouth of that Clive Cameron. It's disgusting, nothing less!"
"Aunt Emily! What in thunder do you mean? Nancy Thornton has only been here a month; if she's so easily gobbled"—the discussion waxed crude—"I'm sure I could not prevent it—I'm not a gobbler."
"No—you're a fool!"
"Come, come, Aunt Emily." Raymond flushed and Mrs. Tweksbury grew mahogany-tinted.
"Oh! I know"—two tears—they were like solid balls—rolled down the deep red cheeks. Almost it seemed that they would make a noise when they landed on the expansive bosom.—"I sound brutal, but I'm the female of the species and it hurts to know defeat the—the second time."