“Pooh! a mere flirtation. It’s different this time. I’m in earnest about Miss Gwilt.”
He looked round as he spoke. Midwinter turned his face aside on the instant, and bent it over a book.
“I see you don’t approve of the thing,” Allan went on. “Do you object to her being only a governess? You can’t do that, I’m sure. If you were in my place, her being only a governess wouldn’t stand in the way with you?”
“No,” said Midwinter; “I can’t honestly say it would stand in the way with me.” He gave the answer reluctantly, and pushed his chair back out of the light of the lamp.
“A governess is a lady who is not rich,” said Allan, in an oracular manner; “and a duchess is a lady who is not poor. And that’s all the difference I acknowledge between them. Miss Gwilt is older than I am—I don’t deny that. What age do you guess her at, Midwinter? I say, seven or eight and twenty. What do you say?”
“Nothing. I agree with you.”
“Do you think seven or eight and twenty is too old for me? If you were in love with a woman yourself, you wouldn’t think seven or eight and twenty too old—would you?”
“I can’t say I should think it too old, if—”
“If you were really fond of her?”
Once more there was no answer.