Chapter 6 - Page 2

Clara stared. Did this mean that she was about to
marry again? What else could it point to?

"Therefore Charles must have a household of his own.
That is obvious. Now, I don't approve of bachelor
establishments. Do you?"

"Really, Mrs. Westmacott, I have never thought of the
matter."

"Oh, you little sly puss! Was there ever a girl who
never thought of the matter? I think that a young man of
six-and-twenty ought to be married."

Clara felt very uncomfortable. The awful thought had
come upon her that this ambassadress had come to her as
a proxy with a proposal of marriage. But how could that
be? She had not spoken more than three or four times
with her nephew, and knew nothing more of him than he had
told her on the evening before. It was impossible, then.
And yet what could his aunt mean by this discussion of
his private affairs?

"Do you not think yourself," she persisted, "that a
young man of six-and-twenty is better married?"

"I should think that he is old enough to decide for
himself."

"Yes, yes. He has done so. But Charles is just a
little shy, just a little slow in expressing himself. I
thought that I would pave the way for him. Two women can
arrange these things so much better. Men sometimes have
a difficulty in making themselves clear."

"I really hardly follow you, Mrs. Westmacott," cried
Clara in despair.

"He has no profession. But he has nice tastes. He
reads Browning every night. And he is most amazingly
strong. When he was younger we used to put on the gloves
together, but I cannot persuade him to now, for he says
he cannot play light enough. I should allow him five
hundred, which should be enough at first."

"My dear Mrs. Westmacott," cried Clara, "I assure you
that I have not the least idea what it is that you are
talking of."

"Do you think your sister Ida would have my nephew
Charles?"

Her sister Ida? Quite a little thrill of relief and
of pleasure ran through her at the thought. Ida and
Charles Westmacott. She had never thought of it. And
yet they had been a good deal together. They had played
tennis. They had shared the tandem tricycle. Again came
the thrill of joy, and close at its heels the cold
questionings of conscience. Why this joy? What was the
real source of it? Was it that deep down, somewhere
pushed back in the black recesses of the soul, there was
the thought lurking that if Charles prospered in his
wooing then Harold Denver would still be free? How mean,
how unmaidenly, how unsisterly the thought! She crushed
it down and thrust it aside, but still it would push up
its wicked little head. She crimsoned with shame at her
own baseness, as she turned