Is he looking better now--or is he looking worse? You put it
very well just now; I was attending to you, though you said I was not.
If he hoped you would refuse him, with whom is his quarrel at present?
And why was he so cool to me for months after we parted at Baden? If
that was his state of mind, why should he accuse me of inconsistency?"
"There is something in it, after all, that a woman can understand. I
don't know whether a man can. He hoped I would refuse him, and yet when
I had done so he was vexed. After a while his vexation subsided, and he
married poor Blanche; but, on learning to-day that I had accepted you,
it flickered up again. I suppose that was natural enough; but it won't
be serious."
"What will not be serious, my dear?" asked Mrs. Vivian, who had come
back to the drawing-room, and who, apparently, could not hear that the
attribute in question was wanting in any direction, without some alarm.
"Shall I tell mamma, Bernard?" said Angela.
"Ah, my dear child, I hope it 's nothing that threatens your mutual
happiness," mamma murmured, with gentle earnestness.
"Does it threaten our mutual happiness, Bernard?" the girl went on,
smiling.
"Let Mrs. Vivian decide whether we ought to let it make us miserable,"
said Bernard.
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