“I will talk to him—I will talk to him!” Felix declared, gayly.
“What will you say to him?” asked his uncle, with some apprehension.
Felix for some moments answered nothing. “Do you mean to marry him to his cousin?” he asked at last.
“Marry him?” echoed Mr. Wentworth. “I shouldn’t think his cousin would want to marry him.”
“You have no understanding, then, with Mrs. Acton?”
Mr. Wentworth stared, almost blankly. “I have never discussed such subjects with her.”
“I should think it might be time,” said Felix. “Lizzie Acton is admirably pretty, and if Clifford is dangerous....”
“They are not engaged,” said Mr. Wentworth. “I have no reason to suppose they are engaged.”
“Par exemple!” cried Felix. “A clandestine engagement? Trust me, Clifford, as I say, is a charming boy. He is incapable of that. Lizzie Acton, then, would not be jealous of another woman.”
“I certainly hope not,” said the old man, with a vague sense of jealousy being an even lower vice than a love of liquor.