“Of course! Am I ever harsh to true first love?” ironically. “She went conscientiously through his achievements all the same. How well we know them, don’t we?”
“As a little boy of ten he won sight-reading prizes at local competitions, while earning his bread as organist of Sutton Rivers Church!” replies Lavinia, the long-absent dimple showing itself cautiously in her left cheek, as she responds promptly to the call upon her memory.
“He had to go to the College of Music unusually late,” rejoins Susan, snatching the words out of her friend’s mouth in triumphant patter; “but, nevertheless, took his A.R.C.M. in theory, the stiffest exam. the Royal College affords, with ninety-nine marks out of a maximum of a hundred!”
Lavinia breaks in hurriedly. “He is composing an organ fugue in G minor, which has something of the strength and purity of design of Bach!”
They both pause to laugh; but Lavinia’s eyes, falling on the MS., grow suddenly serious again.
“I wonder has she yet offered him marriage?” she says, a remnant of amusement piercing through the habitual sadness of her face.
“It is time that she did,” replies Mrs. Darcy, in the same key; adding, after a moment’s reflection, and in a lower tone, “It is quite fifteen months since she last proposed to any one.”
Lavinia lays down her slips upon the blotting-pad, and sits looking straight in front of her, while with an awful clearness rise before her mind’s eye the events so inextricably entangled with Miss Prince’s declaration to Binning.
“Why did you say that?” she asks, after a pause of quickened breathing, to which her friend listens with a trepidation which does not hinder a very valiant resolution to persevere.
“Because you never allow me to mention him; because, as I may not speak of him naturally and simply, I must drag him in by the head and shoulders.”