“Wouldn’t you even allow her the sprig? She’d be much obliged to you at any rate for that theory.”
“It’s the correct one, I assure you; and I’m sure she’d enter into it. She understands all that; that’s why I love her.”
“She’s a very good little girl, and most tidy—also extremely graceful. But her father, to the best of my belief, can give her nothing.”
Rosier scarce demurred. “I don’t in the least desire that he should. But I may remark, all the same, that he lives like a rich man.”
“The money’s his wife’s; she brought him a large fortune.”
“Mrs. Osmond then is very fond of her stepdaughter; she may do something.”
“For a love-sick swain you have your eyes about you!” Madame Merle exclaimed with a laugh.
“I esteem a dot very much. I can do without it, but I esteem it.”
“Mrs. Osmond,” Madame Merle went on, “will probably prefer to keep her money for her own children.”
“Her own children? Surely she has none.”