The shape of the question gives Lavinia an inward convulsion of new terror. Is it possible that she can have heard, or learnt, or divined?
“Do you mean that Captain Binning is gone?” she asks, bending over a long-stalked bronze tulip, which she snips off nearer the bulb than she would have done in a more rational moment.
“Yes; he is gone!” After a moment of reverent ruminating, “It went off quite quietly.”
“Did it?”
“Our real farewell was yesterday. We had a very important interview yesterday morning. I asked for it.”
“Did you?”
“As you know, I have never been tied by the conventions. I have always overridden them.”
“Yes.”
“In my case such unusual action is a necessary postulate of happiness. You are in the enviable position of knowing that you can never be loved for anything but yourself; that no man can be accused of mercenariness in approaching you, but in my case there is always the danger that the millions with which I am credited should keep away from me any man of particularly delicate feeling and high honour.”
It seems incredible to Lavinia that at such a moment she herself should be able to entertain so sordid a speculation; yet there is no doubt that the wonder flashes through her mind as to whether the profits of the Dropless Candle have really amounted to the figure so superbly indicated by the daughter and goddaughter of that great invention?