’Not that I care I or it.  I am prepared to love him as if he were my brother.  I think him one of the finest creatures I ever knew perhaps the finest I ever did know.  His energy and good-nature together are just the qualities to make the best kind of man.  I am proud of him as my friend and my cousin, and now you may suspect what you please.’

’But, my dear, why should not he fall in love with you?  It would be the most proper, and also the most convenient thing in the world.’

’I hate talking of falling in love as though a woman had nothing else to think of whenever she sees a man.’

‘A woman has nothing else to think of.’

‘I have a great deal else.  And so has he.’

‘It’s quite out of the question on his part, then?’

’Quite out of the question.  I’m sure he likes me; I can see it in his face, and hear it in his voice, and am so happy that it is so.  But it isn’t in the way that you mean.  Heaven knows that I may want a friend some of these days, and I feel that I may trust to him.  His feelings to me will be always those of a brother.’

’Perhaps so.  I have seen that fraternal love before under similar circumstances, and it has always ended in the same way.’

‘I hope it won’t end in any way between us.’

’But the joke is that this suspicion, as you call it which makes you so indignant is simply a suggestion that a thing should happen which, of all things in the world, would be the best for both of you.’

’But the thing won’t happen, and therefore let there be an end of it.  I hate the twaddle talk of love, whether it’s about myself or about any one else.  It makes me feel ashamed of my sex, when I find that I cannot talk of myself to another woman without being supposed to be either in love or thinking of love cither looking for it or avoiding it.  When it comes, if it cornea prosperously, it’s a very good thing.  But I for one can do without it, and I feel myself injured when such a state of things is presumed to be impossible.’

’It is worth any one’s while to irritate you, because your indignation is so beautiful.’

’It is not beautiful to me; for I always feel ashamed afterwards of my own energy.  And now, if you please, we won’t say anything more about Mr Will Belton.’

’May I not talk about him, even as the enterprising cousin?

’Certainly; and in any other light you please.  Do you know he seemed to think that he had known you ever so many years ago.’  Clara, as she said this, did not look direct at her friend’s face; but still she could perceive that Mrs Askerton was disconcerted.  There came a shade of paleness over her face, and a look of trouble on her brow, and for a moment or two she made no reply.

‘Did he?’ she then said.  ‘And when was that?’

’I suppose it was in London.  But, after all, I believe it was not you, but somebody whom he remembers to have been like you.  He says that the lady was a Miss Vigo.’  As she pronounced the name, Clara turned her face away, feeling instinctively that it would be kind to do so.