Of course I did not.  Why should I?  I wasn’t bound to tell you my secrets then, sir.’

‘But did he absolutely offer to you?’

‘Is there anything so wonderful in that?  But, wonderful or not, he did.’

‘And you refused him?’

‘I refused him certainly.’

’It wouldn’t have been a bad match, if all that you say about his property is true.’

’If you come to that, it would have been a very good match; and perhaps you think I was silly to decline it?’

‘I don’t say that.’

’Papa thought so but, then, I couldn’t tell papa the whole truth, as I can tell it to you now, Captain Aylmer.  I couldn’t tell dear papa that my heart was not my own to give to my Cousin Will; nor could I give Will any such reason.  Poor Will!  I could only say to him bluntly that I wouldn’t have him.’

‘And you would, if it hadn’t been hadn’t been for me.’

’Nay, Fred; there you tax me too far.  What might have come of my heart if you hadn’t fallen in my way, who can say?  I love Will Belton dearly, and hope that you may do so’

‘I must see him first.’

’Of course but, as I was saying, I doubt whether, under any circumstances, he would have been the man I should have chosen for a husband.  But as it was it was impossible.  Now you know it all, and I think that I have been very frank with you.’

‘Oh! very frank.’  He would not take her little jokes, nor understand her little prettinesses.  That he was a man not prone to joking she knew well, but still it went against the grain with her to find that be was so very hard in his replies to her attempts.

It was not easy for Clara to carry on the conversation after this, so she proposed that they should go upstairs into the drawing-room.  Such a change even as that would throw them into a different way of talking, and prevent the necessity of any further immediate allusion to Will Belton.  For Clara was aware, though she hardly knew why, that her frankness to her future husband had hardly been successful, and she regretted that she had on this occasion mentioned her cousin’s name.  They went upstairs and again sat themselves in chairs over the fire; but for a while conversation did not seem to come to them freely.  Clara felt that it was now Captain Aylmer’s turn to begin, and Captain Aylmer felt that he wished he could read the newspaper.  He had nothing in particular that he desired to say to his lady-love.  That morning, as he was shaving himself, he had something to say that was very particular as to which he was at that moment so nervous, that he had cut himself slightly through the trembling of his hand.  But that had now been said, and he was nervous no longer.  That had now been said, and the thing settled so easily, that he wondered at his own nervousness.  He did not know that there was anything that required much further immediate speech.  Clara had thought somewhat of the time which might be proposed for their marriage, making some little resolves, with which the reader is already acquainted; but no ideas of this kind presented themselves to Captain Aylmer.  He had asked his cousin to be his wife, thereby making good his promise to his aunt.  There could be no further necessity for pressing haste.  Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.