"Well," he said, "that's fine."
She stared at him.
"I want you to marry me," he said; "I've been wanting it a long time. I like you. You're just the companion for me, sense of humour and all that. And a business head. I'm past the sentimental stuff. What I want is a pal. What do you say to the little restaurant?"
The grandfather's clock rose up and struck Fanny in the face. She could have endured that had not the green and white staircase done the same. So strange was the world that she was compelled to put her hand on Albert Edward's arm.
Behind the swimming, dazzling splendour of her happiness was the knowledge that she had secured a job from which no man in the world would have the right to oust her.
[III]
THE HON. CLIVE TORBY
He was now the only son of old Lord Dronda; his elder brother had been killed at Mons early in the war. He had been aware of his good looks ever since he was a week old. Tom, the elder brother, had been fat and plain; everyone had told him so. He did not mind now, being dead. Clive was the happiest fellow possible, even though he had lost an arm late in '17. He had not minded that. It was his left arm, and he could already do almost everything quite well without it; women liked him all the better for having lost it. He had always been perfectly satisfied with himself, his looks, his home, his relations—everything. His critics said that he was completely selfish, and had horrible manners or no manners at all, but it was difficult to underline his happy unconscious young innocence so heavily. Certainly if, in the days before the war, you stayed with his people, you found his indifference to your personal needs rather galling—but "Tom looked after all that," although Tom often did not because he was absent-minded by nature and fond of fishing. The fact is that poor Lady Dronda was to blame. She had educated her children very badly, being so fond of them and so proud of them that she gave in to them on every opportunity. She was known amongst her friends as "Poor Lady Dronda" because, being a sentimentalist and rather stupid, life was perpetually disappointing her. People never came up to her expectations, so she put all her future into the hands of her sons, who, it seemed, might in the end also prove disappointing. The favourite word on her lips was, "Now tell me the truth. The one thing I want to hear from my friends is the truth." However, the truth was exactly what she never did get, because it upset her so seriously and made her so angry with the person who gave it her. Tom being dead, she transformed him into an angel, and told sympathetic acquaintances so often that she never spoke of him that his name was rarely off her lips. Nevertheless she was able to devote a great deal of her time to Clive, who was now "All Her Life."
The results of this were two: first, that Clive, although retaining all his original simple charm, was more sure than ever before that he was perfect; secondly, that he found his mother tiresome and, having been brought up to think of nobody but himself, was naturally as little at home as possible.