“Do you think she regrets that man?” he said, after a pause.
“What man?”
“Lord Brancepeth.”
“Oh, no,” said Carrie Wisbeach. “My dear Ronnie, where do you live? Who regrets things when they have been on all that while?”
He was silent; he felt that his sisters were far beyond him in the knowledge of life.
“You might as well talk of regretting a worn-out shoe,” said Lady Wisbeach, with some impatience.
“Surely you admit she should have married him?”
“I?” cried his sister with amazement. “I implored her not to marry him. She would have been mad if she had married him. She would not marry him when—when she was wild about him. She married Cocky. She did quite right. The Inversays are utterly ruined. The old people have nothing. The very little he ever had came from his grandmother, old Lady Luce, and that little was—was—well, was got rid of in a year or two. Besides, nothing is so stupid—such a want of sense and savoir faire—as to marry a person who has been talked about in connection with you. It is foolish. It confirms things. It makes people laugh. Of course if you get a very great position by it, it’s a different thing. But even in that case I should always say to a woman—at least to a young woman—don’t!”
“Why especially to a young woman?”
“My dear Ronnie, you are really too stupid for anything! If a woman isn’t young she isn’t likely to have many offers of marriage, is she?”