‘What?’

‘Your friend, Mr Lessingham.’

’Excuse me, Miss Lindon, but I am by no means sure that anyone is entitled to call Mr Lessingham a friend of mine.’

‘What!—­Not when I am going to be his wife?’

That took me aback.  I had had my suspicions that Paul Lessingham was more with Marjorie than he had any right to be, but I had never supposed that she could see anything desirable in a stick of a man like that.  Not to speak of a hundred and one other considerations,—­Lessingham on one side of the House, and her father on the other; and old Lindon girding at him anywhere and everywhere—­with his high-dried Tory notions of his family importance,—­to say nothing of his fortune.

I don’t know if I looked what I felt,—­if I did, I looked uncommonly blank.

’You have chosen an appropriate moment, Miss Lindon, to make to me such a communication.’

She chose to disregard my irony.

’I am glad you think so, because now you will understand what a difficult position I am in.’

‘I offer you my hearty congratulations.’

’And I thank you for them, Mr Atherton, in the spirit in which they are offered, because from you I know they mean so much.’

I bit my lip,—­for the life of me I could not tell how she wished me to read her words.

’Do I understand that this announcement has been made to me as one of the public?’

’You do not.  It is made to you, in confidence, as my friend,—­as my greatest friend; because a husband is something more than friend.’  My pulses tingled.  ‘You will be on my side?’

She had paused,—­and I stayed silent.

‘On your side,—­or Mr Lessingham’s?’

’His side is my side, and my side is his side;—­you will be on our side?’

‘I am not sure that I altogether follow you.’

’You are the first I have told.  When papa hears it is possible that there will be trouble,—­as you know.  He thinks so much of you and of your opinion; when that trouble comes I want you to be on our side,—­on my side.’

’Why should I?—­what does it matter?  You are stronger than your father,—­it is just possible that Lessingham is stronger than you; together, from your father’s point of view, you will be invincible.’

‘You are my friend,—­are you not my friend?’

‘In effect, you offer me an Apple of Sodom.’

‘Thank you;—­I did not think you so unkind.’

’And you,—­are you kind?  I make you an avowal of my love, and, straightway, you ask me to act as chorus to the love of another.’

’How could I tell you loved me,—­as you say!  I had no notion.  You have known me all your life, yet you have not breathed a word of it till now.’

‘If I had spoken before?’

I imagine that there was a slight movement of her shoulders,—­ almost amounting to a shrug.

’I do not know that it would have made any difference.—­I do not pretend that it would.  But I do know this, I believe that you yourself have only discovered the state of your own mind within the last half-hour.’