Clarice sank despondently into the most comfortable chair in the room.

‘Not for me,’ she said.  ‘I am sure I couldn’t eat anything.’

‘You may as well try, dear,’ replied Mrs. Willoughby; and she crossed to Clarice and unpinned her hat—­a little straw hat, with the daintiest of pink ribbons.  She held it in her hand for a moment, weighing it with a smile which had something of tenderness in it.  She laid a light hand upon the brown hair, touching with a caress the curls about the forehead.  A child’s face was turned up to hers with a pretty appeal of melancholy.  Mrs. Willoughby was moved to kiss the girl again.  In spite of a similarity of years, she had an affection almost maternal for Clarice; and, with an intuition, too, which was almost maternal, she was able to appreciate the sincerity of the girl’s distress, with a doubtful smile at the gravity of its cause.

Clarice threw her arms about Mrs. Willoughby’s neck.  ‘Oh, Connie,’ she quavered, ‘you can’t guess what has happened!’ The voice threatened to break into sobs, and there were tears already brimming the eyes.

‘Never mind; you shall tell me after lunch.’

At lunch Mrs. Willoughby industriously beguiled her with anecdotes.  She talked of an uncle of Clarice, a Philistine sea-captain with pronounced opinions upon the advance of woman, ludicrously mimicking his efforts to adapt a quarter-deck style of denunciation to the gentler atmosphere of a drawing-room.  To sharpen his diatribes the worthy captain was in the habit of straining ineffectually after epigrams.  Mrs. Willoughby quoted an unsuccessful essay concerning the novels women favoured.  ’A woman with a slice of intellect likes that sort of garbage for the same reason that a girl with a neat pair of ankles likes a little mud in the streets.’  Clarice was provoked to a reluctant smile by a mental picture of a violent rubicund face roaring the words.  She was induced to play with a fragment of sole; she ended by eating the wing of a chicken.

‘Now,’ said Mrs. Willoughby when she had set Clarice upon a sofa in front of a cosy fire in her boudoir, ‘tell me what all the trouble’s about.’  She drew up a low chair and sat down with a hand upon the girl’s arm.

‘It’s about Sid—­I mean Mr. Mallinson,’ she began.  ’He called yesterday afternoon after you had left.  Papa had gone out for a walk, and aunt was lying down with a sick headache.  So I saw him alone.  He said he was glad to get the opportunity of speaking to me by myself, and he—­he—­well, he asked me to marry him.  He was quite different from what he usually is, else I might have stopped him before.  But he made a sort of rush at it.  I told him that I was very sorry, but I didn’t care for him in that kind of way—­at all events yet.  And then it was horrible!’ The voice began to break again.

Mrs. Willoughby took hold of Clarice’s hand, and the latter nestled towards her.