“Never mind, dearest, how long it is, if we are true to one another”.
“Oh, that of course thereʼs no doubt about. And you think I must tell my father”?
“Of course you must, Clayton. We are not very old, you know; he will think that he can part us, and that may make him less angry”,—here she laughed at her own subtlety,—“and putting that out of the question, neither of us could bear to be deceiving him so long. After all, you are but a younger son; and I am a lady, I hope. I have been thoroughly educated; and there is nothing but money against me”.
She looked so proud in the shade of the spruce, that he was obliged to stop and admire her. At least he thought it his duty to do so, and the opinion did not offend her.
“But what will your brother Cradock say? He is so different from you. So odd, so determined and—upright”.
“I donʼt care that for what he says. Only he had better be civil. He treated me very badly that time about the Ireland. I have a very great regard for Cradock; he is a very decent fellow; but I must teach him his proper place”.
“And you can beat him easily in Latin; my father says you can. What a shame that he would not go in for the Hertford, that you might turn the tables upon him! He would not even have got a proxy, or whatever it was he gave you”.
“I donʼt know that”, said Clayton, who was truthful in spite of vanity; “very likely he would have beaten me. But I have cut him out in two things; for I canʼt help thinking that he has a hankering after you”.
He looked at her with a keen, shrewd glance, for he was desperately jealous. She saw it, and smiled, and only said—“Would you believe that he could help it? But it happens that I know otherwise”.
“Oh, then, you would have had him, if you could”?