“I'm so glad that you are glad that I'm glad,” he returned airily, quoting Mallock.
“At the same time—”
“Oh, yes, now you are going to say something to spoil it all, I suppose,” he interrupted.
“I can't help thinking that it is not quite fair to the others to carry her off day after day—especially after she has not been with her brother for so long a time.”
“Ah, yes, her brother! Poor girl, I'm afraid you've been sadly bored. We must somehow manage to reshuffle the cards. Starbrow might have a turn at Constance, while you could try Northcott. Would that be better?”
“No,” she replied gravely, colouring a little, and with a troubled glance at his face. “I am thinking principally of Mary and Captain Horton. I know that he would like to see a little more of her, and—I don't quite see the justice of your monopolising her.”
“And why should I give way to Captain Horton, or to any man? That's not the way to win a lady's favour. I understand that you look on Miss Starbrow as a species of goddess; don't you think it would be a grand thing to be sister-in-law to one of the immortals?”
“She could not be more to me than she is; but that you have any feeling of that kind for Mary, I don't believe, Arthur.”
“You are right,” he replied, with a laugh. “I am not sure that wooing Mary would be an altogether pleasant process; but as a friend she is a treasure—the chummiest woman I ever came across.”
He did not tell her that the strongest bond between them was their feeling for Fan herself. He, on his part, felt that he could never be sufficiently grateful to the woman who had rescued his half-sister from such a depth of destitution and misery, and had protected and loved her; she, on hers, could not sufficiently admire him for the way in which he had acted, in spite of social prejudices as strong almost as instincts, when he had once discovered a sister in the poor shop-girl. At different periods and in different ways they had both treated her badly; but the something of remorse they could not help feeling on that account only served to increase their present love and care for her.