“How can I possibly tell? He’s not said so.”
“Don’t be coy; now don’t,” said Lucian. “I’m anxious to further your happiness. Then, I take it, he’s desperately smitten; h’m! he’ll be neither to hold nor to bind, I’m thinking.”
“I am sure this conversation is not at all the proper thing,” said Dolly, demurely.
“It’s not, like the holes in my elbows; you’re right there. But look here; what I want to say is this: There’s a heap of unregenerate wickedness in old Farquhar, as I reckon you’ve found out, but anybody he likes can lead him by the nose. I’ve heard him talk surprising bosh about his career, and the aims of his life, und so wieder; but I tell you he’d throw the whole cargo overboard to the sharks if it got in your way. You know what his arm’s like? Well, he’s got a mind made on the same pattern; and you, my dear, good girl, have got Samson in chains. And mind you don’t play Delilah, or there’ll be the etcetera to pay. That’s the truth for you.”
Dolly listened to this homily and did not commit herself. “I believe you really want me to marry him,” was her comment.
“I’d dance at the wedding with a light heart,” Lucian averred.
“That you should not; nothing could be worse for you.”
“Look here, I’ve had one mother,” said Lucian. “Be a sister for a change, now do.”
“I like looking after you.”
“So does Farquhar. Community of tastes—”