"I should think not," replied Mrs. Marvelle loftily. "She has too much sense. She merely said, 'All right! I must stick to Masherville!'"
Mr. Marvelle nodded blandly. "Admirable,—admirable!" he murmured, with a soft little laugh, "A very clever girl—a very bright creature! And really there are worse fellows than Masherville! The title is old."
"Yes, the title is all very well," retorted his wife—"but there's no money—or at least very little."
"Marcia has sufficient to cover any deficit?" suggested Mr. Marvelle, in a tone of meek inquiry.
"An American woman never has sufficient," declared Mrs. Marvelle. "You know that as well as I do. And poor dear Mrs. Van Clupp has so set her heart on a really brilliant match for her girl—and I had positively promised she should have Bruce-Errington. It is really too bad!" And Mrs. Marvelle paced the room with a stately, sweeping movement, pausing every now and then to glance at herself approvingly in the mirror above the chimney-piece, while her husband resumed his perusal of the Times. By-and-by she said abruptly—
"Montague!"
Mr. Marvelle dropped his paper with an alarmed air.
"My dear!"
"I shall go to Clara Winsleigh this morning—and see what she means to do in the matter. Poor Clara! She must be disgusted at the whole affair!"
"She had rather a liking for Errington, hadn't she?" inquired Mr. Marvelle, folding up the Times in a neat parcel, preparatory to taking it with him in order to read it in peace on his way to the Law Courts.