He said, at last:  “I suppose there’s no engagement existing?”

“Engagement?”

“You have not, what they call, plighted your troth to the man?”

Cornelia struggled for evasion.  She recognized the fruitlessness of the effort, and abandoning it stood up.

“I am engaged to no one.”

“Well, I should hope not,” said Wilfrid.  “An engagement might be broken.”

“Not by me.”

“It might, is all that I say.  A romantic sentiment is tougher.  Now, I have been straightforward with you:  will you be with me?  I shall not hurt the man, or wound his feelings.”

He paused; but it was to find that no admission of the truth, save what oozed out in absence of speech, was to be expected.  She seemed, after the fashion of women, to have got accustomed to the new atmosphere into which he had dragged her, without any conception of a forward movement.

“I see I must explain to you how we are situated,” said Wilfrid.  “We are in a serious plight.  You should be civil to this woman for several reasons—­for your father’s sake and your own.  She is very rich.”

“Oh, Wilfrid!”

“Well, I find money well thought of everywhere.”

“Has your late school been good for you?”

“This woman, I repeat, is rich, and we want money.  Oh! not the ordinary notion of wanting money, but the more we have the more power we have.  Our position depends on it.”

“Yes, if we can be tempted to think so,” flashed Cornelia.

“Our position depends on it.  If you posture, and are poor, you provoke ridicule:  and to think of scorning money, is a piece of folly no girls of condition are guilty of.  Now, you know I am fond of you; so I’ll tell you this:  you have a chance; don’t miss it.  Something unpleasant is threatening; but you may escape it.  It would be madness to throw such a chance away, and it is your duty to take advantage of it.  What is there plainer?  You are engaged to no one.”

Cornelia came timidly close to him.  “Pray, be explicit!”

“Well!—­this offer.”

“Yes; but what—­there is something to escape from.”

Wilfrid deliberately replied:  “There is no doubt of the Pater’s intentions with regard to Mrs. Chump.”

“He means...?”

“He means to marry her.”

“And you, Wilfrid?”

“Well, of course, he cuts me out.  There—­there! forgive me:  but what can I do?”

“Do you conspire—­Wilfrid, is it possible?—­are you an accomplice in the degradation of our house?”

Cornelia had regained her courage, perforce of wrath.  Wilfrid’s singular grey eyes shot an odd look at her.  He is to be excused for not perceiving the grandeur of the structure menaced; for it was invisible to all the world, though a real fabric.

“If Mrs. Chump were poor, I should think the Pater demented,” he said.  “As it is—! well, as it is, there’s grist to the mill, wind to the organ.  You must be aware” (and he leaned over to her with his most suspicious gentleness of tone) “you are aware that all organs must be fed; but you will make a terrible mistake if you suppose for a moment that the human organ requires the same sort of feeding as the one in Hillford Church.”