“What cannot be true, Mrs. Hibbert?” he asked, speaking like an automaton.
“That—that—you had asked her to marry you?”
“It is quite true,” he said, and looked at her unflinchingly; his face wore an expression of slight surprise.
“But it is so strange and unsuitable; she is so much older than you.”
“I know she is much older.” He seemed to unlock his lips every time he spoke.
“She is quite old and feeble,” Florence said compassionately.
“Yes, she is quite old and feeble,” he repeated.
“And, Mr. Wimple, do you know that she is not rich, that—that she has no money, nothing. She is poor.”
“I know she is poor, Mrs. Hibbert.” He seemed to be afflicted with an utter destitution of language, an incapacity to say anything but the shortest, most cut-and-dried sentence. It affected Florence. But again she struggled on; though she felt her words come with difficulty.
“And you—forgive me, but I am fond of her—and you, I believe, are not rich. Walter told me that you were not, and—and——” She was beginning to despair of making any way with Mr. Wimple, his eyes were dull and uninterested, he seemed insensible to everything except the burden of his own gravity.