‘Well, it is a risky complaint; and the attacks, when they come, are so agonizing that to endure them I ought to get rid of all outside anxieties, folk say. Now—do you want her, sir?’
‘With all my soul! But she doesn’t want me.’
‘I don’t think she is so against you as you imagine. I fancy if it were put to her plainly, now I am in this state, it might be done.’
They lapsed into conversation on the early days of their acquaintance, until Mrs. Pierston’s daughter re-entered the room.
‘Avice,’ said her mother, when the girl had been with them a few minutes. ‘About this matter that I have talked over with you so many times since my attack. Here is Mr. Pierston, and he wishes to be your husband. He is much older than you; but, in spite of it, that you will ever get a better husband I don’t believe. Now, will you take him, seeing the state I am in, and how naturally anxious I am to see you settled before I die?’
‘But you won’t die, mother! You are getting better!’
‘Just for the present only. Come, he is a good man and a clever man, and a rich man. I want you, O so much, to be his wife! I can say no more.’
Avice looked appealingly at the sculptor, and then on the floor. ‘Does he really wish me to?’ she asked almost inaudibly, turning as she spoke to Pierston. ‘He has never quite said so to me.’
‘My dear one, how can you doubt it?’ said Jocelyn quickly. ‘But I won’t press you to marry me as a favour, against your feelings.’
‘I thought Mr. Pierston was younger!’ she murmured to her mother.