"Thanks, my fair relative! But it is quite as disagreeable to be refused by a 'goosey girl of seventeen' as by a young lady of seven-and-twenty. Your age, my dear Blanche, is it not?"
"Never mind my age!" retorted Mrs. Walraven, sharply. "My age has nothing to do with it. If you don't ask Mollie Dane to-night, Hugh Ingelow or James Sardonyx will to-morrow, and the chances are ten to one she accepts the first one who proposes."
"Indeed! Why?"
"Oh, for the sake of being engaged, being a heroine, being talked about. She likes to be talked about, this bewildering fairy of yours. She isn't in love with any of you; that I can see. It isn't in her shallow nature, I suppose, to be in love with anybody but her own precious self."
"My dear Mrs. Walraven, are you not a little severe? Poor, blue-eyed Mollie! And you think, if I speak to-night, I stand a chance?"
"A better chance than if you defer it. She may say 'yes' on the impulse of the moment. If she does, trust me to make her keep her word."
"How?"
"That is my affair. Ah! what, was that?"
The cousins were standing near one of the long, richly draped windows, and the silken hangings had fluttered suddenly.
"Nothing but the wind," replied Dr. Oleander, carelessly. "Very well, Blanche, I take you at your word. I will ask Mollie to-night."