"I am not likely to marry foolishly, papa, or to offend you in that way," Clarissa answered with a kind of quiet firmness, which her father inwardly execrated as "infernal obstinacy;" "but no money in the world would be the faintest temptation to me."
"Humph! Wait till some Yorkshire squire offers you a thousand a year pin-money; you'll change your tone then, I should hope. Have you seen anything of that fellow Granger, by the way?"
"I have seen a good deal of Mr. and Miss Granger, papa. They have been staying here for a fortnight, and are here now."
"You don't say so! Then I shall be linked into an intimacy with the fellow.
Well, it is best to be neighbourly, perhaps. And how do you like Mr.
Granger?"
"He is not a particularly unpleasant person, papa; rather stiff and matter-of-fact, but not ungentlemanly; and he has been especially polite to me, as if he pitied me for having lost Arden."
In a general way Mr. Lovel would have been inclined to protest against being pitied, either in his own person or that of his belongings, by such a man as Daniel Granger. But in his present humour it was not displeasing to him to find that the owner of Arden Court had been especially polite to Clarissa.
"Then he is really a nice fellow, this Granger, eh, Clary?" he said airily.
"I did not say nice, papa."
"No, but civil and good-natured, and that kind of thing. Do you know, I hear nothing but praises of him about Arden; and he is really doing wonders for the place. Looking at his work with an unjaundiced mind, it is impossible to deny that. And then his wealth!—something enormous, they tell me. How do you like the daughter, by the way?"
This question Mr. Lovel asked with something of a wry face, as if the existence of Daniel Granger's daughter was not a pleasing circumstance in his mind.