Conny picked at a bit of bread and twisted the fragments into little balls.
“Oh, I am sure I shall like banking, Mrs. Hargrave,” said I, with fine condescension. “Of course,” I continued, waving my hand in imitation of my father, who would gesticulate in that manner in a very impressive and polished way: “if I had an income of my own, however small, I should have preferred to continue as I was. But necessity is one of those things to which noblemen as well as ploughmen must submit.”
“True,” said my uncle with a nod. “Help yourself to more wine.”
“I should have thought,” observed my candid aunt with a face full of sober honesty, and in a tone that quite forbade all notion that any irony was intended, “that you would have been able to marry very well.”
“Oh, oh! give him time—give him time!” chuckled my uncle.
“I have never been in love,” said I.
Conny’s deep eyes, full of mournfulness, met mine.
“I have a great horror, Mrs. Hargrave,” I went on, “of men who marry only for money.”
“And so have I,” said Conny.
“Eh? you?” cried her papa, fondly. “What do you know of these matters?”