"Well, dear, she thought that—that he was paying you attentions. And so he is! The poor fellow.... It's quite natural, I daresay, that he should take to you, but I should make him understand that he mustn't be foolish, before it goes any further, if I were you. Of course, with a man like that, it mayn't be serious, but you can't tell what ideas he may have in his head, can you?"
"You mean he might ask me to marry him?" said Ownie slowly; "is that it?"
"Well, my dear, I suppose that—ridiculous as it sounds, I suppose that is what it might come to; and of course it would make unpleasantness, and we should have the drawing-rooms empty at the worst time of the year. Much better to keep him in his place and to show him that it would be no good."
Ownie's abrupt little laugh sounded. She swung herself to and fro in the rocking-chair rather violently.
"If I did that, I think you'd have the drawing-rooms empty at once. His 'place'? 'His place' is funny! Why, sometimes he's paid as much as a thousand pounds for four nights, and I'm a pauper.... You take it for granted, then, that if he asked me I should say 'No'?"
Mrs. Tremlett looked bewildered. Her gaze fell, and wandered helplessly. Her brow was puckered when she spoke.
"Wouldn't you say 'No'?" she faltered.
"Why should I?"
"Oh, of course if you could care for him——Of course in the sight of Heaven we're all equal; but it isn't as if he were a white man, is it? And you scarcely know him."
"I know who he is—I might do a good deal worse for myself than marry Elisha Lee. I should be a rich woman."