Imogen reflected.
“He did say something last night about hoping for a good talk to-day—something he wanted to say to me,” she said, hesitatingly.
“Ah, I thought so; he has in a sense taken the definite understanding for granted, as it were,” said Mrs Wentworth. “And you know, dearie, he is much older than you—about my own age, in fact,” with a touch of her little bridling of self-satisfaction, “and you must let him, as it were, do things in his own way.”
“Yes, I know he is much older than I. You do not need to remind me of that,” said Imogen, in a melancholy tone. And a vision passed before her of the ideal husband—rather, perhaps, the lover—she had pictured in her girlish dreams, eager, devoted, ardent; it was not the staid, almost paternal Major Winchester!
Mrs Wentworth’s face clouded. “But, my darling,” she said, “you don’t mean—”
“Oh, I don’t know what I mean. I am not good enough or clever enough for him; but I daresay it will be all right. I will tell him so; and he is very kind and patient. He will teach me, I daresay, and—I know it will be a comfort to you to—to feel—and—” Here a smile for the first time broke through her troubled expression: “Just fancy, mamsey, how astonished every one will be! It will be fun to write to Dora; and, mamsey, I must have her for one of my bridesmaids.”
“We shall see, dearie; we shall see. Yes, indeed, every one will be astonished,” and visions of the delightful letters of faire-part of the exciting news to her special cronies that would fall to her own share floated before Mrs Wentworth’s dazzled eyes. “Not but that Imogen might have made a more brilliant marriage,” she imagined herself saying; “but Major Winchester is a man one can so thoroughly trust, and—” Here her daughter’s voice interrupted her. She was pointing to the postscript and looking rather dismayed.
“Mamma,” she said, “did you notice this? I don’t think I did; at least, I was so startled I don’t know if I noticed it or not. But I shouldn’t have told even you.”
“Oh, nonsense, darling! He could not have meant to exclude me,” said Mrs Wentworth. “However—”
“You will be very, very careful, won’t you, mamsey?” urged, the girl, who was not without experience of her mother’s impulsiveness.