"A secret, Edith, as you say, that Tom knows nothing about."
"How very dreadful! And you are going to marry him holding that secret?"
"Yes; I shall not reveal it. If I did, he would not marry me."
"But what is it, my dear? Won't you even tell me?"
"No, Edith. Tom marries me for a certain purpose. He gets what he wants. I do not feel that I am doing wrong in giving myself to him; but, wrong or right, the thing is arranged: why worry about it now?"
"You are a strange girl. I am sorry you are going to marry my brother. I do not believe you will be at all happy, but, as I have said already, I have expressed my opinion."
"The marriage is to take place quite quietly three weeks from now," said Florence. "We have arranged everything. We are not going to have an ordinary wedding. I shall be married in my travelling-dress. Tom says he can barely spend a week away from his editorial work, and he wants me to live in a flat with him at first."
"Oh, those flats are so detestable," said Edith; "no air, and you are crushed into such a tiny space; but I suppose Tom will sacrifice everything to the sitting-rooms."
"He means to have a salon: he wants to get all the great and witty and wise around us. It ought to be an interesting future," said Florence in a dreary tone.
Edith gazed at her again.