’That may be, Mrs. Barton.  I hope to give her quite as comfortable a home as any she has been accustomed to.  But a thousand a year is impossible.  I haven’t got it.  But I can settle five hundred on her, and there’s many a peeress of the realm who hasn’t that.  Of course five hundred a year is very little.  No one feels it more than I. For had I the riches of the world, I should not consider them sufficient to create a place worthy of Olive’s beauty.  But love must be allowed to count for something, and I think—­yes, I can safely say—­she will never find—­’

‘Yes, I know—­I am sure; but it cannot be.’

’Then you mean to say that you will sacrifice your daughter’s happiness for the sake of a little wretched pride?’

‘Why press the matter further?  Why cannot we remain friends?’

’Friends!  Yes, I hope we shall remain friends; but I will never consent to give up Olive.  She loves me.  I know she does.  My life is bound up in hers.  No, I’ll never consent to give her up, and I know she won’t give me up.’

’Olive has laughed and flirted with you, but it was only pour passer le temps; and I may as well tell you that you are mistaken when you think that she loves you.’

’Olive does love me.  I know she does; and I’ll not believe she does not—­at least, until she tells me so.  I consider I am engaged to her; and I must beg of you, Mrs. Barton, to allow me to see her and hear from her own lips what she has to say on this matter.’

With the eyes of one about to tempt fortune adventurously, like one about to play a bold card for a high stake, Mrs. Barton looked on the tall, handsome man before her; and, impersonal as were her feelings, she could not but admire, for the space of one swift thought, the pale aristocratic face now alive with passion.  Could she depend upon Olive to say no to him?  The impression of the moment was that no girl would.  Nevertheless, she must risk the interview, and gliding towards the door, she called; and then, as a cloud that grows bright in the sudden sunshine, the man’s face glowed with delight at the name, and a moment after, white and drooping like a cut flower, the girl entered.  Captain Hibbert made a movement as if he were going to rush forward to meet her.  She looked as if she would have opened her arms to receive him, but Mrs. Barton’s words fell between them like a sword.

‘Olive,’ she said, ’I hear you are engaged to Captain Hibbert!  Is it true?’

Startled in the drift of her emotions, and believing her confidence had been betrayed, the girl’s first impulse was to deny the impeachment.  No absolute promise of marriage had she given him, and she said: 

’No, mamma, I am not engaged.  Did Edward—­I mean Captain Hibbert—­say I was engaged to him?  I am sure—­’

’Didn’t you tell me, Olive, that you loved me better than anyone else?  Didn’t you even say you could never love anyone else?  If I had thought that—­’