“Yes, a week or two.”
After this she was silent, and her brother, leaning against the door-post, glanced listlessly down the river. She was seldom silent very long.
“Well, what is it, sister?” He rarely used the word of relationship.
“Have you thought at all, Archie, about—Rose and Mr. Carington?”
“Why should I? Margaret has been pestering herself about the man. But Rose is a difficult young woman, Anne, and there have been so many matrimonial scares that now I don’t trouble myself any longer.”
“Circumstance is a mighty match-maker, Archie.”
“But Rose is not, as you know. I sometimes think she will never marry. She is twenty now.”
“Indeed! I think, Archie, I should like to have a dictionary of the reasons why women marry men.”
He laughed. “The reason is as old as Adam. They have no one else to marry.”
“Oh, he had no embarras de choix,” she cried. “Pity he had not. They are various, I fancy—I mean the honest causes of interest that lead on to love. I have always thought that Rose would be captured by character. In our every-day life it lacks chance of exhibition, but here, it is, or has been, different. That man is a strong, effective, decisive person. He has a good deal that is attractive, and that soft Southern way which our men lack. Moreover, he is very good-looking. If you don’t want it to be, take care: I think it is too late.”