“Indeed?  That is very interesting.  Ha!”

Silence fell between them.

“I’m sure,” remarked Mr. Mumbray, at length, “that my wife and daughter will be very sorry to have missed your call.  Undoubtedly you can count on their being at home to-morrow.”

The prediction was fulfilled, and before leaving the house Glazzard made Serena a proposal of marriage.  That morning there had occurred a quarrel of more than usual bitterness between mother and daughter.  Serena was sick of her life at home, and felt a longing, at any cost, for escape to a sphere of independence.  The expected offer from Glazzard came just at the right moment; she accepted it, and consented that the marriage should be very soon.

But a few hours of reflection filled her with grave misgivings.  She was not in love with Glazzard; personally, he had never charmed her, and in the progress of their acquaintance she had discovered many points of his character which excited her alarm.  Serena, after all, was but a half-educated country girl; even in the whirlwind of rebellious moments she felt afraid of the words that came to her lips.  The impulses towards emancipation which so grievously perturbed her were unjustified by her conscience; at heart, she believed with Ivy Glazzard that woman was a praying and subordinate creature; in her bedroom she recounted the day’s sins of thought and speech, and wept out her desire for “conversion,” for the life of humble faith.  Accepting such a husband as Eustace, she had committed not only an error, but a sin.  The man was without religion, and sometimes made himself guilty of hypocrisy; of this she felt a miserable assurance.  How could she hope to be happy with him?  What had interested her in him was that air of culture and refinement so conspicuously lacked by the men who had hitherto approached her.  He had seemed to her the first gentleman who sought her favour.  To countenance him, moreover, was to defy her mother’s petty rule.  But, no, she did not love him—­did not like him.

Yet to retract her promise she was ashamed.  Only girls of low social position played fast and loose in that way.  She went through a night of misery.

On the morrow her betrothed, of course, came to see her.  Woman-like, she had taken refuge in a resolve of postponement; the marriage must be sooner or later, but it was in her power to put it off.  And, with show of regretful prudence, she made known this change in her mind.

“I hardly knew what I was saying.  I ought to have remembered that our acquaintance has been very short.”

“Yet long enough to enable me to win your promise,” urged Glazzard.

“Yes, I have promised.  It’s only that we cannot be married so very soon.”

“I must, of course, yield,” he replied, gracefully, kissing her hand.  “Decision as to the time shall rest entirely with you.”

“Thank you—­that is very kind.”

He went away in a mood of extreme discontent.  Was this little simpleton going to play with him?  There were solid reasons of more than one kind why the marriage should not be long delayed.  It would be best if he returned to London and communicated with her by letter.  He could write eloquently, and to let her think of him as in the midst of gay society might not be amiss.