“I'm happier than I would be trying to make him fall in love with me. Oh, you needn't be shocked. It can be done. Lots of girls do it. It isn't any moral sense that keeps me from it, either. It's just pride.”
“My dear!”
“And there's another angle to it. I wouldn't marry a man who hasn't got a mind of his own. Even if I had the chance, which I haven't. That silly mother of his—she is silly, daddy, and selfish—Do you know what she is doing now?”
“We ought not to discuss her. She—”
“Fiddlesticks. You love gossip and you know it.”
Her tone was light, but the rector felt that arm around his neck tighten. He surmised a depth of feeling that made him anxious.
“She is trying to marry him to Marion Hayden.”
The rector sat up, almost guiltily.
“But—are you sure she is doing that?”
“Everybody says so. She thinks that if he is married, and there is a war, he won't want to go if he has a wife.” She was silent for a moment. “Marion will drive him straight to the devil, daddy.”