Vanna was staring straight before her with an introspective expression in her midnight orbs. When the silence had lasted some time, she said very quietly:
“You are working out some scheme in your brain, Uncle, I feel sure of it; you have something more to tell me—something to propose. Is it not so?”
He considered the ash of his cigar for a moment or two, then, lifting his eyes to her face, he said:
“What a pity—what a very great pity it is that your boy did not live to be here to-day!”
As before, when he spoke of the loss of her child, an indescribable expression flitted across Giovanna’s face.
“That is precisely what you said the other day,” she remarked, coldly. “Where is the use of referring a second time to a misfortune which happened so long ago?”
“Because I cannot help contrasting your position to-day with what it would have been could you but have taken your boy by the hand, and have said to Sir Gilbert: ‘You lost your son and heir long years ago: but to-day I bring you a grandson to take his place. Here is the new heir of Withington Chase.’ In that case, how the old man would have welcomed you!—nothing would have seemed too good for you, so overjoyed would he have been. The position which ought to have been yours from the first would then be accorded you, and you would take your place in society as the daughter-in-law of Sir Gilbert Clare, and the mother of the next heir. And then, a little later, my Vanna, you would marry again. Oh, yes, you would! Marry money—and perhaps a title to boot. Why not? You are one of the handsomest women in London, or else I don’t know a handsome woman when I see one!”
Vanna rose abruptly from her chair, and then sat down again. For once she was profoundly moved.
“Oh, Uncle, this is the merest folly!” she cried. “Why talk of impossibilities? Let us keep to realities. I thought you had something to propose—something, perhaps, that would——”
“So I have, my dear; so I have something to propose,” responded the Captain, with a chuckle. “What I said to you the other day was, ‘There is only one course open to us, and that is to find Sir Gilbert an heir.’”