“He is a good young man then?”

“Very good,” said Mary with an emphasis.

“And Chowton belongs to him.”

“Oh yes;—­it belongs to him.”

“Some young men make such ducks and drakes of their property when they get it”

“They say that he’s not like that at all.  People say that he understands farming very well and that he minds everything himself.”

“What an excellent young man!  There is no other reason for his coming to your house, Mary?” Then the sluice-gates were opened and the whole story was told.  Sitting there late into the night Mary told it all as well as she knew how,—­all of it except in regard to any spark of love which might have fallen upon her in respect of Reginald Morton.  Of Reginald Morton in her story of course she did not speak; but all the rest she declared.  She did not love the man.  She was quite sure of that.  Though she thought so well of him there was, she was quite sure, no feeling in her heart akin to love.  She had promised to take time because she had thought that she might perhaps be able to bring herself to marry him without loving him,—­ to marry him because her father wished it, and because her going from home would be a relief to her stepmother and sisters, because it would be well for them all that she should be settled out of the way.  But since that she had made up her mind,—­she thought that she had quite made up her mind,—­that it would be impossible.

“There is nobody else, Mary?” said Lady Ushant putting her hand on to Mary’s lap.  Mary protested that there was nobody else without any consciousness that she was telling a falsehood.  “And you are quite sure that you cannot do it?”

“Do you think that I ought, Lady Ushant?”

“I should be very sorry to say that, my dear.  A young woman in such a matter must be governed by her feelings.  Only he seems to be a deserving young man!” Mary looked askance at her friend, remembering at the moment Reginald Morton’s assurance that his aunt would have disapproved of such an engagement.  “But I never would persuade a girl to marry a man she did not love.  I think it would be wicked.  I always thought so.”

There was nothing about degradation in all this.  It was quite clear to Mary that had she been able to tell Lady Ushant that she was head over ears in love with this young man and that therefore she was going to marry him, her old friend would have found no reason to lament such an arrangement.  Her old friend would have congratulated her.  Lady Ushant evidently thought Larry Twentyman to be good enough as soon as she heard what Mary found herself compelled to say in the young man’s favour.  Mary was almost disappointed; but reconciled herself to it very quickly, telling herself that there was yet time for her to decide in favour of her lover if she could bring herself to do so.