‘Don’t put it in that ridiculous way. He has a very strong friendship for me. Poor Mr. Cattley! I am very glad he is going: and yet if I were to ask him to do such a thing——’
‘Of course he would do it. He has always done everything you told him.’
‘You always go so much too far in everything, you boys. I am sure he would try to do it, but it would be very hard upon him. Percy, don’t you think you might get up your courage for another time?’
‘It isn’t the courage,’ he said. And then after a moment:—‘After all, what’s the use? He’s not going to stay here all his life, and nothing can happen in a fortnight or so. Can’t you let it swing?’
‘Nothing can happen in a fortnight or so! Why, it is just the time in which everything may happen. If he were settled here it would not be half so dangerous, there would seem no hurry then: whereas in a fortnight! we may have Elly engaged to him before we know where we are.’
‘Come now, Aunt Mary. Poor Jack is nobody: that is not his fault: but he’s an honourable fellow, nobody can say anything against his honour. He couldn’t behave in an ungentlemanly way.’
‘What has that to do with it?’ said Mrs. Egerton, exasperated. ‘Honourable! why, in ten years, with a good profession and getting on so well, he may be a great match.’
‘Then why, in the name of heaven—— Oh, I’m speaking from your point of view. To me it would be horrid, anyhow—that fellow!—but if you think so——’
‘I don’t want Elly to wait ten years,’ said Mrs. Egerton. ‘The longer a girl like Elly waits, the more fastidious she grows. If she does not marry till thirty, she will probably never marry at all.’
‘She will probably not have the chance,’ Percy remarked.