A Strange World: A Novel. Volume 1 (of 3)

by M. E. Braddon

'Of course. Are we not brother and sister henceforward?'

'Well, dear, have you been trying to like him?' asked Madge, when her lover had departed.

'Yes, and I found it quite easy, you darling Madge! He seemed to me much nicer to-day. Perhaps it was because I could see how he worships you. I never saw two people so intensely devoted. Prosperity suits him wonderfully; though that cloudy look which I have often noticed in him still comes over his face by fits and starts.'

'He feels his cousin's awful death very deeply.'

'Does he? That's very good of him when he profits so largely by the calamity. Well, dearest, I mean to like him very much; to be as fond of him as if he really were my brother.'

'And he will be all that a brother could be to you, dear.'

'I don't quite know that I should care about that,' returned Viola, doubtfully; 'brothers are sometimes nuisances. A brother-in-law would be more likely to be on his good behaviour, for fear of offending his wife.'

* * * * *

Churchill succeeded in lighting upon Sir Nugent at his club. He was yawning behind an evening paper in the reading-room when Mr. Penwyn found him. His greeting was just a shade more cordial than it had always been, but only a shade, for it was Sir Nugent's rule to be civil to everybody. 'One never knows when a man may get a step,' he said; and, in a world largely composed of younger sons and heirs presumptive, this was a golden rule.