Sir Thomas got up, keeping his back to the window. It was not half so easy as dealing with Mr. Rushton. “It is something about your little pupil, Lucy Trevor.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Stone got up too. “I want to hear nothing more of Lucy Trevor. I wash my hands of her,” she said.
“Ah?” said Miss Southernwood, coming a step closer. She divined immediately, though she was not half so clever as her sister, what it was.
“I am sorry she has displeased you,” said Sir Tom. “I want you to let me marry her, Mrs. Stone.”
“Marry her!” Mrs. Stone said, almost with a shriek; and then she drew herself up to a great deal more than her full height, as she knew, very well how to do. “I have taken an interest in her, and she has disappointed me,” she said; “and as to consenting or not consenting, all that is nonsense nowadays. It might have answered last century, but now it is obsolete.” Then she made him a stately courtesy. “I could have nothing to oppose to Sir Thomas Randolph, even, if I meant to oppose at all,” she said.
Miss Southernwood came up to him as the door closed on her sister.
“Was this what she meant all the time?” asked the milder woman. “It was you she was thinking of all the time? Well, I do not blame her, and I hope you may be very happy. But, Sir Thomas, tell Lucy that I rely upon her to do nothing more in the matter we were talking of. It could not be done, it would not be possible to have it done; but, surely, surely, you could make it up between you to poor Frank. There are so many appointments that would suit him, if he had good friends that would take a little trouble. I do think, Sir Thomas, that it might be made up to Frank.”
Miss Southernwood, after all, was the best partisan and most staunch supporter; but it was strange that she, who had not originated, nay, who had disapproved of her sister’s scheme in respect to Frank St. Clair, should be the one to insist upon a compensation to that discomfited hero.
Lucy was still standing at the window when Sir Tom came back. He made signs of great despondency when he came in sight and alarmed her.
“She will not give me her consent, though I made sure of it,” he said. “Lucy, what shall we do if we can not get Mrs. Stone’s consent?”