“No conspiracy,” the Major said, going to her, and helping her to take off her pelisse. “Did you find your very odd acquaintance—Mrs Floore, is it not?—at home? I should think she was very much obliged to you for your visit!”

“I believe you are quite as high in the instep as Fanny, and disapprove of Mrs Floore as heartily!” Serena exclaimed.

“I own I cannot think her a proper friend for you,” he admitted.

“Stuff! I found her at home, and I was very much obliged to her for the welcome she was kind enough to give me. I must say, Fanny, I wish we were in London, just that we might see with our own eyes the Laleham woman’s triumph!”

“You don’t mean to say that she has made up a brilliant match for poor Emily already?” cried Fanny.

“No, she hasn’t done that, but, if she’s to be believed, she might have her pick of a dozen eligible partis tomorrow, if she chose! Flying at higher game, I conclude! So does Mrs Floore. She still holds by her cross-eyed Duke! I am very sceptical about him, but there seems to be no doubt that the Rotherham ball has worked like a charm. I daresay it might help to open some doors, but what tactics the Laleham woman employed to force open some others, and which of the Patronesses she out-generalled into surrendering vouchers for Almack’s, I would give a fortune to know. One can’t but admire her!”

“Odious woman!” Fanny said. “I am sorry for Emily.”

“Nonsense! She will be in high feather, enjoying a truly magnificent season.”

“But who is this lady?” asked the Major.

“She is Mrs Floore’s daughter, not as engaging as her mama, but quite as redoubtable.”

“She is a hateful, scheming creature!” said Fanny, with unusual asperity. “Excuse me!—I must speak to Lybster!—Something I forgot to tell him he must do! No, no, pray don’t pull the bell, dearest!”

“Good gracious, Fanny, what in the world—?” Serena stopped, for the door had closed softly behind Fanny.

“Serena!”

She turned her head, struck by the urgent note in the Major’s voice. One look at his face was enough to explain Fanny’s surprising behaviour. She felt suddenly breathless, and absurdly shy.

He came towards her, and took her hands. “It was not conspiracy. I came to ask her, as one who is in some sort your guardian, if I might ask you to marry me.”

“Oh, Hector, how could you be so foolish?” she said, her voice catching on something between a laugh and a sob. “What has poor Fanny to say to anything? Did she tell you that you might? Must I ask her what I should reply?”

“Not that! But I am aware now, as I never was seven years ago, of the gulf that lies between us!”

She pulled one of her hands away, and pressed her fingers against his mouth. “Don’t say such things! I forbid you! Don’t think yourself unworthy of me! If you only knew—But you don’t, my poor Hector, you don’t! It’s I who am unworthy! You’ve no notion how detestable I can be, how headstrong, how obstinate, how shrewish.”

He caught her into his arms, saying thickly: “Do not you say such things! My goddess, my queen!”

“Oh, no, no, no!”

He raised his head, smiling a little crookedly down at her. “Do you dislike to hear yourself called so? There is nothing I would not do to please you, but you cannot help but be my goddess! You have been so these seven years!”

“Only a goddess could dislike it! You see by that how wretchedly short of the mark I fall. I have a little honesty—enough to tell you now that you must not worship me.”

He only laughed, and kissed her again. She protested no more, too much a woman not to be deeply moved by such idolatry, and awed by the constancy which, though it might have been to a false image, could not be doubted.

It was not long before he was saying to her much of what he had previously said to Fanny, anxiously laying his circumstances before her, and dwelling so particularly on the disparity between them of rank and fortune, that she interrupted presently to say with mingled amusement and impatience: “My dearest Hector, I wish you will not talk such nonsense! Why do you set so much store by rank? You are a gentleman, and I hope I am a gentlewoman, and as for fortune, we shall Ho very well!”

His expression changed; he said: “I wish to God you had no fortune!”

It was not to be expected that she should understand such a point of view, nor did she. In her world, a poorly dowered girl was an object for compassion. Even a love-match must depend upon the marriage-settlements, and wealthy and besotted indeed must be the suitor who allied himself to a portionless damsel. She looked her astonishment, and repeated, in a blank voice: “Wish I had no fortune?”

“Yes! I had rather by far you were penniless, than—I daresay—.so rich that my own fortune must seem the veriest pittance beside yours!”

Laughter sprang to her eyes. “Oh, you goose! Do you fear to be taken for a fortune-hunter? Of all the crack-brained ideas to take into your head! No, indeed, Hector, this is being foolish beyond permission!”

“I don’t know that I care so much for that—though it is what people will say!—but I must support my wife, not live upon her fortune! Serena, surely you must understand this!”

It seemed to her absurdly romantic, but she only said quizzingly: “Was this thought in your head seven years ago?”

“Seven years ago,” he replied gravely, “your father was alive, and you were not sole mistress of your fortune. If I thought about the matter at all—but you must remember that I was then no more than a green boy!—I imagine I must have supposed that Lord Spenborough, if he countenanced the match, would settle on you a sum comparable to my own means.”

“Or have cut me off without a penny?” she inquired, amused.

“Or have done that,” he agreed, perfectly seriously.

She perceived that he was in earnest, but she could not help saying, with a gurgle of laughter: “It is too bad that you cannot enact the role of Cophetua! I must always possess an independence, which cannot be wrested from me But take heart! It is by no means certain that I shall ever have more than that. Are you prepared to take me with my wretched seven hundred pounds a year, my ridiculous fortune-hunter? I warn you, it may well be no more!”

“Are you in earnest?” he asked, his brow lightening. “Lady Spenborough said something about your fortune’s being oddly tied-up, but no more than that. Tell me!”

“I will, but if you mean to take it as a piece of excellent good news we are likely to fall out!” she warned him. “Nothing was ever more infamous! My dear but misguided papa left my fortune—all but what I have from my mother—to Rotherham, in trust for me, with the proviso that he was to allow me no more than the pin-money I had always been given, until I was married—with, mark you! his lordship’s consent and approval! In the event of my marrying without that august approval. I may, I suppose, kiss my fingers to my inheritance!”

He was staggered, and his first thoughts agreed exactly with her own. “What? You must win Rotherham’s consent? Good God, I never in my life heard of anything so iniquitous!”

“Just so!” said Serena, with immense cordiality. “I hope you will perceive that I was not to be blamed for flying into the worst passion of my career when that clause was read to me!”

“I do not wonder at it! Rotherham, of all men alive! Pardon me, but the indelicacy of such a provision, the—But I must be silent on that head!”

“Abominable, wasn’t it? I am heartily of your opinion!”

He sat for a moment or two, with his lips tightly compressed, but as other thoughts came into his mind, his face relaxed, and he presently exclaimed: “Then if he should refuse his consent, you will have no more than will serve for your gowns, and—and such fripperies!”

“Very true—but you need not say it as though you were glad of it!”

“I am glad of it!”

“Well, so am not I!” retorted Serena tartly.

“Serena, all I have is yours to do with as you please!” he said imploringly.

She was touched, but a strong vein of common sense made her say: “I am very much obliged to you, but what if I should please to spend all you have upon my gowns—and such fripperies? My dear, that is very fine talking, but it won’t do! Besides, the very thought of Ivo’s holding my purse-strings to the day of his death, or mine, is enough to send me into strong convulsions! He shall not do it! And now I come to think of it, I believe he will not be able to. He told me himself that if he withheld his consent unreasonably I might be able to break the Trust. Hector, if you do not instantly wipe from your face that disappointed look, you will have a taste of my temper, and so I warn you!”

He smiled, but said with quiet confidence: “Rotherham will never give his consent to your marrying me!”

“We shall see!”

“And nothing—nothing!—would prevail upon me to seek it!” said the Major, with suppressed violence.

“Oh, you need not! That at least was not stipulated in Papa’s Will! I shall inform him myself of my betrothal—but that will not be until I am out of mourning, in the autumn.”

“The autumn!” He sounded dismayed, but recollected himself immediately, and said: “You are very right! My own feelings—But it would be quite improper for such an announcement to be made until you are out of black gloves!”

She stretched out her hand to lay it upon one of his. “Well, I think it would. Hector. In general, I set little store by the proprieties, but in such a case as this—oh, every feeling would be offended! In private we are engaged, but the world shall not know it until October.”