Mrs. Thompson refused to comprehend the hint.
"Surely, Mr. Kenion, if a young man proposes to a young lady—and asks her to engage herself to him without her mother's knowledge, that should imply that he is prepared to take over all responsibilities?"
She had not uttered a single reproach, or even by innuendo upbraided him for the improper course that he had pursued when persuading Enid to defy the laws of chaperonage and go about with him alone. Her pride would not permit her to make the slightest allusion to the girl's folly. Besides, that would be to play his game for him. By her silence she intended to show him that he had not scored a point.
"Don't you admit as much as that, Mr. Kenion? If I were to countenance the suggested engagement, how do you propose to maintain such a wife suitably—in the manner in which she has been brought up?"
"Well, of course I couldn't promise to open a shop for her;" and he laughed with fatuous good-humour, as if what he had said was rather funny, and not an impertinence.
"There are worse things in the world than shops, Mr. Kenion."
"Exactly;" and he laughed again. "As to ways and means—of course I haven't made any inquiries of any sort. But Enid gave me to understand—or I gathered, don't you know, that money was no object."
"Indeed it is an object," said Mrs. Thompson warmly. "I might almost say it has been the object of my life. I know how difficult it is to earn, and how easy to waste.... But I doubt if anything can be gained by further discussion. Your answers to my questions have left me no alternative. I must altogether refuse my sanction to an engagement."
"You won't consent to it?"