'Valentine's morning. You can send flowers without any kind of writing to be traced. Do you think I don't know who sent me the flowers?'
'At all events, you should not be proud of it. You should be sorry.
It is a very great pity——'
'Yes, that's what I think,' said Madge. 'How can I help pitying him?
It wouldn't be natural not to pity him, Vice-chancellor or no
Vice-chancellor. I hate that man.'
'I say it is a great pity that Mr. Hanbury does not accept his dismissal as inevitable; and as for you, Madge, you ought not even to think of him. Captain King sent you that beautiful card-case on Valentine's morning; that is what you should remember.'
'Captain King could send me a white elephant if he chose,' said Madge, spitefully. 'There's no danger to him in anything he does. It's different with poor Jack.'
'Madge,' said her sister, seriously, 'do you know that you are talking as if you looked forward to this marriage with regret?'
'Oh no, I don't—I'm not such a fool,' said Madge, plainly. 'I know it's stupid to think about Jack Hanbury; but still, one has got a little feeling.'
Then she laughed.
'I will tell you another secret, Nan. If he daren't write to me he can send me things. He sent me a book—a novel—and I know he meant me to think the hero himself. For he was disappointed in love, too, and wrote beautifully about his sufferings, and at last the poor fellow blew his brains out.'
'Well, Mr. Hanbury couldn't do that, at all events—for reasons,' Nan said.