"Why should she, if she don't want him?" said Sir Arthur briskly. "Rosita, I don't like to see this eagerness to get rid of your daughters. It reflects badly upon your bringing-up of them, ma'am."
"Oh no, papa; how can you say so? It speaks well for mamma's happiness in her married life."
"I see Charles hasn't cured you of your pertness yet, miss—ma'am, I should say. Poor fellow! I wonder if I ought to have told him what he was bringing upon himself?"
Justice demanded that Marian should immediately rise and pull her father's hair, but in the middle of the operation she paused tragically. "Something has just struck me," she said. "Why do we all take it for granted that Honour must end by marrying one of these two men? It may be some one we have never thought of that she really cares for."
"My dear, don't imagine fresh complications," said her mother in alarm. "All the available young men have proposed, so that she could have had any one she liked."
"Perhaps she was afraid of her cruel father," suggested Mrs Cowper, deftly arranging Sir Arthur's hair into a curl in the middle of his forehead. "Don't touch that, papa, whatever you do. I want Charley to see it; it will give him a new view of your character. Of course it is the persistence of these two men that makes you feel that one of them is fated to succeed. Others come and others go, but they go on for ever."
"Perhaps it would be as well to forbid them both the house," suggested her victimised father.
"Not both at once, papa! Why, neither we nor Honour should ever know which was the right one, if they were both shut out together. You must do it in turn."
"And after making one welcome for a week or so, pick a quarrel with him and install the other? Precious undignified, my dear child, but a man must make sacrifices for the sake of his family."
"Ah, but that's just what you don't do!" cried Marian, roused to recollection of a grievance of her own. "How could you all but promise Charley that if a peaceful mission was sent to Agpur, he should command the escort?"