"That's unfortunate, because you certainly will have to."
"We'll see."
"Stella'll see--or, rather, her family will. If it were any other but the Austin family I should have said that a person of your eel-like slipperiness----"
"Thank you."
"Might have wriggled away; but if you wriggle away it will be out of the frying-pan into the fire. For ever so long the family has been expecting you to ask Stella to marry you; you've fostered the expectation, and now that you have asked her, if you try to sneak out of your engagement, Mr. Austin will make things so uncomfortable that you'll find it easier to make Stella Mrs. E."
"And do you want to marry Tom?"
"I do not. All the same, I expect I shall."
"Why? If you don't want to?"
Miss Carmichael sent a cloud of smoke up into the air.
"A girl's position is so different from a man's. I must marry someone, and, so far as I can see, it may as well be Tom."