CLARE'S MARRIAGE
Three weeks after Richard arrived in town, his cousin Clare was
married, under the blessings of her energetic mother, and with the
approbation of her kinsfolk, to the husband that had been
expeditiously chosen for her. The gentleman, though something more
than twice the age of his bride, had no idea of approaching senility
for many long connubial years to come. Backed by his tailor and his
hairdresser, he presented no such bad figure at the altar, and none
would have thought that he was an ancient admirer of his bride's
mama, as certainly none knew he had lately proposed for Mrs. Doria
before there was any question of her daughter. These things were
secrets; and the elastic and happy appearance of Mr. John Todhunter
did not betray them at the altar. Perhaps he would rather have
married the mother. He was a man of property, well born, tolerably
well educated, and had, when Mrs. Doria rejected him for the first
time, the reputation of being a fool--which a wealthy man may have
in his youth; but as he lived on, and did not squander his
money--amassed it, on the contrary, and did not seek to go into
Parliament, and did other negative wise things, the world's opinion,
as usual, veered completely round, and John Todhunter was esteemed a
shrewd, sensible man--only not brilliant; that he was brilliant
could not be said of him. In fact, the man could hardly talk, and it
was a fortunate provision that no impromptu deliveries were required
of him in the marriage-service.
Mrs. Doria had her own reasons for being in a hurry. She had
discovered something of the strange impassive nature of her child;
not from any confession of Clare's, but from signs a mother can read
when her eyes are not resolutely shut. She saw with alarm and
anguish that Clare had fallen into the pit she had been digging for
her so laboriously. In vain she entreated the baronet to break the
disgraceful, and, as she said, illegal alliance his son had
contracted. Sir Austin would not even stop the little pension to
poor Berry. "At least you will do that, Austin," she begged
pathetically. "You will show your sense of that horrid woman's
conduct?" He refused to offer up any victim to console her. Then
Mrs. Doria told him her thoughts,--and when an outraged energetic
lady is finally brought to exhibit these painfully hoarded
treasures, she does not use half words as a medium. His System, and
his conduct generally were denounced to him, without analysis. She
let him understand that the world laughed at him; and he heard this
from her at a time when his mask was still soft and liable to be
acted on by his nerves. "You are weak, Austin! weak, I tell you!"
she said, and, like all angry and self-interested people, prophecy
came easy to her. In her heart she accused him of her own fault, in
imputing to him the wreck of her project. The baronet allowed her
to revel in the proclamation of a dire future, and quietly
counselled her to keep apart from him, which his sister assured him
she would do.
But to be passive in calamity is the province of no woman. Mark the
race at any hour. "What revolution and hubbub does not that little
instrument, the needle, avert from us!" says THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP.
Alas, that in calamity women cannot stitch! Now that she saw Clare
wanted other than iron, it struck her she must have a husband, and
be made secure as a woman and a wife. This seemed the thing to do:
and, as she had forced the iron down Clare's throat, so she forced
the husband, and Clare gulped at the latter as she had at the
former. On the very day that Mrs. Doria had this new track shaped
out before her, John Todhunter called at the Foreys'. "Old John!"
sang out Mrs. Doria, "show him up to me. I want to see him
particularly." He sat with her alone. He was a man multitudes of
women would have married--whom will they not?--and who would have
married any presentable woman: but women do want asking, and John
never had the word. The rape of such men is left to the practical
animal. So John sat alone with his old flame. He had become resigned
to her perpetual lamentation and living Suttee for his defunct
rival. But, ha! what meant those soft glances now--addressed to him?
His tailor and his hairdresser gave youth to John, but they had not
the art to bestow upon him distinction, and an undistinguished man
what woman looks at? John was an indistinguishable man. For that
reason he was dry wood to a soft glance.
And now she said: "It is time you should marry; and you are the man
to be the guide and helper of a young woman, John. You are well
preserved--younger than most of the young men of our day. You are
eminently domestic, a good son, and will be a good husband and good
father. Some one you must marry.--What do you think of Clare for a
wife for you?"
At first John Todhunter thought it would be very much like his
marrying a baby. However, he listened to it, and that was enough for
Mrs. Doria.
She went down to John's mother, and consulted with her on the
propriety of the scheme of wedding her daughter to John in
accordance with his proposition. Mrs. Todhunter's jealousy of any
disturbing force in the influence she held over her son Mrs. Doria
knew to be one of the causes of John's remaining constant to the
impression she had aforetime produced on him. She spoke so kindly of
John, and laid so much stress on the ingrained obedience and passive
disposition of her daughter, that Mrs. Todhunter was led to admit
she did think it almost time John should be seeking a mate, and that
he--all things considered--would hardly find a fitter one. And this,
John Todhunter--old John no more--heard to his amazement when, a day
or two subsequently, he instanced the probable disapproval of his
mother.
The match was arranged. Mrs. Doria did the wooing. It consisted in
telling Clare that she had come to years when marriage was
desirable, and that she had fallen into habits of moping which might
have the worse effect on her future life, as it had on her present
health and appearance, and which a husband would cure. Richard was
told by Mrs. Doria that Clare had instantaneously consented to
accept Mr. John Todhunter as lord of her days, and with more than
obedience--with alacrity. At all events, when Richard spoke to
Clare, the strange passive creature did not admit constraint on her
inclinations. Mrs. Doria allowed Richard to speak to her. She
laughed at his futile endeavours to undo her work, and the boyish
sentiments he uttered on the subject. "Let us see, child," she said,
"let us see which turns out the best; a marriage of passion, or a
marriage of common sense."
Heroic efforts were not wanting to arrest the union. Richard made
repeated journeys to Hounslow, where Ralph was quartered, and if
Ralph could have been persuaded to carry off a young lady who did
not love him, from the bridegroom her mother averred she did love,
Mrs. Doria might have been defeated. But Ralph in his cavalry
quarters was cooler than Ralph in the Bursley meadows. "Women are
oddities, Dick," he remarked, running a finger right and left along
his upper lip. "Best leave them to their own freaks. She's a dear
girl, though she doesn't talk: I like her for that. If she cared for
me I'd go the race. She never did. It's no use asking a girl twice.
_She_ knows whether she cares a fig for a fellow."
The hero quitted him with some contempt. As Ralph Morton was a young
man, and he had determined that John Todhunter was an old man, he
sought another private interview with Clare, and getting her alone,
said: "Clare, I've come to you for the last time. Will you marry
Ralph Morton?"
To which Clare replied, "I cannot marry two husbands, Richard."
"Will you refuse to marry this old man?"
"I must do as mama wishes."
"Then you're going to marry an old man--a man you don't love, and
can't love! Oh, good God! do you know what you're doing?" He flung
about in a fury. "Do you know what it is? Clare!" he caught her two
hands violently, "have you any idea of the horror you're going to
commit?"
She shrank a little at his vehemence, but neither blushed nor
stammered: answering: "I see nothing wrong in doing what mama thinks
right, Richard."
"Your mother! I tell you it's an infamy, Clare! It's a miserable
sin! I tell you, if I had done such a thing I would not live an hour
after it. And coldly to prepare for it! to be busy about your
dresses! They told me when I came in that you were with the
milliner. To be smiling over the horrible outrage! decorating
yourself!"...
"Dear Richard," said Clare, "you will make me very unhappy."
"That one of my blood should be so debased!" he cried, brushing
angrily at his face. "Unhappy! I beg you to feel for yourself,
Clare. But I suppose," and he said it scornfully, "girls don't feel
this sort of shame."
She grew a trifle paler.
"Next to mama, I would wish to please you, dear Richard."
"Have you no will of your own?" he exclaimed.
She looked at him softly; a look he interpreted for the meekness he
detested in her.
"No, I believe you have none!" he added. "And what can I do? I can't
step forward and stop this accursed marriage. If you would but say a
word I would save you; but you tie my hands. And they expect me to
stand by and see it done!"
"Will you not be there, Richard?" said Clare, following the question
with her soft eyes. It was the same voice that had so thrilled him
on his marriage morn.
"Oh, my darling Clare!" he cried in the kindest way he had ever used
to her, "if you knew how I feel this!" and now as he wept she wept,
and came insensibly into his arms. "My darling Clare!" he repeated.
She said nothing, but seemed to shudder, weeping.
"You _will_ do it, Clare? You will be sacrificed? So lovely as you
are, too!... Clare! you cannot be quite blind. If I dared speak to
you, and tell you all.... Look up. Can you still consent?"
"I must not disobey mama," Clare murmured, without looking up from
the nest her cheek had made on his bosom.
"Then kiss me for the last time," said Richard. "I'll never kiss you
after it, Clare."
He bent his head to meet her mouth, and she threw her arms wildly
round him, and kissed him convulsively, and clung to his lips,
shutting her eyes, her face suffused with a burning red.
Then he left her, unaware of the meaning of those passionate kisses.
Argument with Mrs. Doria was like firing paper-pellets against a
stone wall. To her indeed the young married hero spoke almost
indecorously, and that which his delicacy withheld him from speaking
to Clare. He could provoke nothing more responsive from the
practical animal than "Pooh-pooh! Tush, tush! and Fiddlededee!"
"Really," Mrs. Doria said to her intimates, "that boy's education
acts like a disease on him. He cannot regard anything sensibly. He
is for ever in some mad excess of his fancy, and what he will come
to at last heaven only knows! I sincerely pray that Austin will be
able to bear it."
Threats of prayer, however, that harp upon their sincerity, are not
very well worth having. Mrs. Doria had embarked in a practical
controversy, as it were, with her brother. Doubtless she did trust
he would be able to bear his sorrows to come, but one who has
uttered prophecy can barely help hoping to see it fulfilled: she had
prophesied much grief to the baronet.
Poor John Todhunter, who would rather have married the mother, and
had none of your heroic notions about the sacred necessity for love
in marriage, moved as one guiltless of offence, and deserving his
happiness. Mrs. Doria shielded him from the hero. To see him smile
at Clare's obedient figure, and try not to look paternal, was
touching.
Meantime Clare's marriage served one purpose. It completely occupied
Richard's mind, and prevented him from chafing at the vexation of
not finding his father ready to meet him when he came to town. A
letter had awaited Adrian at the hotel, which said, "Detain him till
you hear further from me. Take him about with you into every form of
society." No more than that. Adrian had to extemporize, that the
baronet had gone down to Wales on pressing business, and would be
back in a week or so. For ulterior inventions and devices wherewith
to keep the young gentleman in town, he applied to Mrs. Doria.
"Leave him to me," said Mrs. Doria, "I'll manage him." And she did.
"Who can say," asks THE PILGRIM'S SCRIP, "when he is not walking a
puppet to some woman?"
Mrs. Doria would hear no good of Lucy. "I believe," she observed, as
Adrian ventured a shrugging protest in her behalf,--"it is my firm
opinion, that a scullery-maid would turn any of you men round her
little finger--only give her time and opportunity." By dwelling on
the arts of women, she reconciled it to her conscience to do her
best to divide the young husband from his wife till it pleased his
father they should live their unhallowed union again. Without
compunction, or a sense of incongruity, she abused her brother and
assisted the fulfilment of his behests.
So the puppets were marshalled by Mrs. Doria, happy, or sad, or
indifferent. Quite against his set resolve and the tide of his
feelings, Richard found himself standing behind Clare in the
church--the very edifice that had witnessed his own marriage, and
heard, "I, Clare Doria, take thee John Pemberton," clearly
pronounced. He stood, with black brows dissecting the arts of the
tailor and hairdresser on unconscious John. The back, and much of
the middle, of Mr. Todhunter's head was bald; the back shone like
an egg-shell, but across the middle the artist had drawn two long
dabs of hair from the sides, and plastered them cunningly, so that
all save wilful eyes would have acknowledged the head to be covered.
The man's only pretension was to a respectable juvenility. He had a
good chest, stout limbs, a face inclined to be jolly. Mrs. Doria had
no cause to be put out of countenance at all by the exterior of her
son-in-law: nor was she. Her splendid hair and gratified smile made
a light in the church. Playing puppets must be an immense pleasure
to the practical animal. The Forey bridesmaids, five in number, and
one Miss Doria, their cousin, stood as girls do stand at these
sacrifices, whether happy, sad, or indifferent; a smile on their
lips and tears in attendance. Old Mrs. Todhunter, an exceedingly
small ancient woman, was also there. "I can't have my boy John
married without seeing it done," she said, and throughout the
ceremony she was muttering audible encomiums on her John's manly
behaviour.
The ring was affixed to Clare's finger; there was no ring lost in
this common-sense marriage. The instant the clergyman bade him
employ it, John drew the ring out, and dropped it on the finger of
the cold passive hand in a business-like way, as one who had studied
the matter. Mrs. Doria glanced aside at Richard. Richard observed
Clare spread out her fingers that the operation might be the more
easily effected.
He did duty in the vestry a few minutes, and then said to his aunt:
"Now I'll go."
"You'll come to the breakfast, child? The Foreys"----
He cut her short. "I've stood for the family, and I'll do no more. I
won't pretend to eat and make merry over it."
"Richard!"
"Good-bye."
She had attained her object and she wisely gave way.
"Well. Go and kiss Clare, and shake his hand. Pray, pray be civil."
She turned to Adrian, and said: "He is going. You must go with him,
and find some means of keeping him, or he'll be running off to that
woman. Now, no words--go!"
Richard bade Clare farewell. She put up her mouth to him humbly, but
he kissed her on the forehead.
"Do not cease to love me," she said in a quavering whisper in his
ear.
Mr. Todhunter stood beaming and endangering the art of the
hairdresser with his pocket-handkerchief. Now he positively was
married, he thought he would rather have the daughter than the
mother, which is a reverse of the order of human thankfulness at a
gift of the Gods.
"Richard, my boy!" he said heartily, "congratulate me."
"I should be happy to, if I could," sedately replied the hero, to
the consternation of those around. Nodding to the bridesmaids and
bowing to the old lady, he passed out.
Adrian, who had been behind him, deputed to watch for a possible
unpleasantness, just hinted to John: "You know, poor fellow, he has
got into a mess with his marriage."
"Oh! ah! yes!" kindly said John, "poor fellow!"
All the puppets then rolled off to the breakfast.
Adrian hurried after Richard in an extremely discontented state of
mind. Not to be at the breakfast and see the best of the fun,
disgusted him. However, he remembered that he was a philosopher, and
the strong disgust he felt was only expressed in concentrated
cynicism on every earthly matter engendered by the conversation.
They walked side by side into Kensington Gardens. The hero was
mouthing away to himself, talking by fits.
Presently he faced Adrian, crying: "And I might have stopped it! I
see it now! I might have stopped it by going straight to him, and
asking him if he dared marry a girl who did not love him. And I
never thought of it. Good heavens! I feel this miserable affair on
my conscience."
"Ah!" groaned Adrian. "An unpleasant cargo for the conscience, that!
I would rather carry anything on mine than a married couple. Do you
purpose going to him now?"
The hero soliloquized: "He's not a bad sort of man."...
"Well, he's not a Cavalier," said Adrian, "and that's why you wonder
your aunt selected him, no doubt? He's decidedly of the Roundhead
type, with the Puritan extracted, or inoffensive, if latent."
"There's the double infamy!" cried Richard, "that a man you can't
call bad, should do this damned thing!"
"Well, it's hard we can't find a villain."
"He would have listened to me, I'm sure."
"Go to him now, Richard, my son. Go to him now. It's not yet too late.
Who knows? If he really has a noble elevated superior mind--though not a
Cavalier in person, he may be one at heart--he might, to please you, and
since you put such stress upon it, abstain ... perhaps with some loss of
dignity, but never mind. And the request might be singular, or seem so,
but everything has happened before in this world, you know, my dear boy.
And what an infinite consolation it is for the eccentric, that
reflection!"
The hero was impervious to the wise youth. He stared at him as if he
were but a speck in the universe he visioned.
It was provoking that Richard should be Adrian's best subject for
cynical pastime, in the extraordinary heterodoxies he started, and
his worst in the way he took it; and the wise youth, against his
will, had to feel as conscious of the young man's imaginative mental
armour, as he was of his muscular physical.
"The same sort of day!" mused Richard, looking up. "I suppose my
father's right. We make our own fates, and nature has nothing to do
with it."
Adrian yawned.
"Some difference in the trees, though," Richard continued
abstractedly.
"Growing bald at the top," said Adrian.
"Will you believe that my aunt Helen compared the conduct of that
wretched slave Clare to Lucy's, who, she had the cruel insolence to
say, entangled me into marriage?" the hero broke out loudly and
rapidly. "You know--I told you, Adrian--how I had to threaten and
insist, and how she pleaded, and implored me to wait."
"Ah! hum!" mumbled Adrian.
"You remember my telling you?" Richard was earnest to hear her
exonerated.
"Pleaded and implored, my dear boy? Oh, no doubt she did. Where's
the lass that doesn't."
"Call my wife by another name, if you please."
"The generic title can't be cancelled because of your having married
one of the body, my son."
"She did all she could to persuade me to wait!" emphasized Richard.
Adrian shook his head with a deplorable smile.
"Come, come, my good Ricky; not all! not all!"
Richard bellowed: "What more could she have done?"
"She could have shaved her head, for instance."
This happy shaft did stick. With a furious exclamation Richard shot
in front, Adrian following him; and asking him (merely to have his
assumption verified), whether he did not think she might have shaved
her head? and, presuming her to have done so, whether, in candour,
he did not think he would have waited--at least till she looked less
of a rank lunatic?
After a minute or so, the wise youth was but a fly buzzing about
Richard's head. Three weeks of separation from Lucy, and an
excitement deceased, caused him to have soft yearnings for the dear
lovely home-face. He told Adrian it was his intention to go down
that night. Adrian immediately became serious. He was at a loss what
to invent to detain him, beyond the stale fiction that his father
was coming to-morrow. He rendered homage to the genius of woman in
these straits. "My aunt," he thought, "would have the lie ready; and
not only that, but she would take care it did its work."
At this juncture the voice of a cavalier in the Row hailed them,
proving to be the Honourable Peter Brayder, Lord Mountfalcon's
parasite. He greeted them very cordially; and Richard, remembering
some fun they had in the Island, asked him to dine with them;
postponing his return till the next day. Lucy was his. It was even
sweet to dally with the delight of seeing her.
The Hon. Peter was one who did honour to the body he belonged to.
Though not so tall as a West of London footman, he was as shapely;
and he had a power of making his voice insinuating, or arrogant, as
it suited the exigencies of his profession. He had not a rap of
money in the world; yet he rode a horse, lived high, expended
largely. The world said that the Hon. Peter was salaried by his
Lordship, and that, in common with that of Parasite, he exercised
the ancient companion profession. This the world said, and still
smiled at the Hon. Peter; for he was an engaging fellow, and where
he went not Lord Mountfalcon would not go.
They had a quiet little hotel dinner, ordered by Adrian, and made a
square at the table, Ripton Thompson being the fourth. Richard sent
down to his office to fetch him, and the two friends shook hands for
the first time since the great deed had been executed. Deep was the
Old Dog's delight to hear the praises of his Beauty sounded by such
aristocratic lips as the Hon. Peter Brayder's. All through the
dinner he was throwing out hints and small queries to get a fuller
account of her; and when the claret had circulated, he spoke a word
or two himself, and heard the Hon. Peter eulogize his taste, and
wish him a bride as beautiful; at which Ripton blushed, and said, he
had no hope of that, and the Hon. Peter assured him marriage did not
break the mould.
After the wine this gentleman took his cigar on the balcony, and
found occasion to get some conversation with Adrian alone.
"Our young friend here--made it all right with the governor?" he
asked carelessly.
"Oh yes!" said Adrian. But it struck him that Brayder might be of
assistance in showing Richard a little of the "society in every
form," required by his chief's prescript. "That is," he continued,
"we are not yet permitted an interview with the august author of our
being, and I have rather a difficult post. 'Tis mine both to keep
him here, and also to find him the opportunity to measure himself
with his fellow-man. In other words, his father wants him to see
something of life before he enters upon housekeeping. Now I am proud
to confess that I'm hardly equal to the task. The demi, or
damnedmonde--if it's that he wants him to observe--is one that I
have not got the walk to."
"Ha! ha!" laughed Brayder. "You do the keeping, I offer to parade
the demi. I must say, though, it's a queer notion of the old
gentleman."
"It's the continuation of a philosophic plan," said Adrian.
Brayder followed the curvings of the whiff of his cigar with his
eyes, and ejaculated, "Infernally philosophic!"
"Has Lord Mountfalcon left the island?" Adrian inquired.
"Mount? to tell the truth I don't know where he is. Chasing some
light craft, I suppose. That's poor Mount's weakness. It's his ruin,
poor fellow! He's so confoundedly in earnest at the game."
"He ought to know it by this time, if fame speaks true," remarked
Adrian.
"He's a baby about women, and always will be," said Brayder. "He's
been once or twice wanting to marry them. Now there's a
woman--you've heard of Mrs. Mount? All the world knows her.--If that
woman hadn't scandalized."--The young man joined them, and checked
the communication. Brayder winked to Adrian, and pitifully indicated
the presence of an innocent.
"A married man, you know," said Adrian.
"Yes, yes!--we won't shock him," Brayder observed. He appeared to
study the young man while they talked.
Next morning Richard was surprised by a visit from his aunt. Mrs.
Doria took a seat by his side, and spoke as follows:
"My dear nephew. Now you know I have always loved you, and thought
of your welfare as if you had been my own child. More than that, I
fear. Well, now, you are thinking of returning to--to that
place--are you not? Yes. It is as I thought. Very well now, let me
speak to you. You are in a much more dangerous position than you
imagine. I don't deny your father's affection for you. It would be
absurd to deny it. But you are of an age now to appreciate his
character. Whatever you may do he will always give you money. That
you are sure of; that you know. Very well. But you are one to want
more than money: you want his love. Richard, I am convinced you will
never be happy, whatever base pleasures you may be led into, if he
should withhold his love from you. Now, child, you know you have
grievously offended him. I wish not to animadvert on your
conduct.--You fancied yourself in love, and so on, and you were
rash. The less said of it the better now. But you must now--it is
your duty now to do something--to do everything that lies in your
power to show him you repent. No interruptions! Listen to me. You
must consider him. Austin is not like other men. Austin requires
the most delicate management. You must--whether you feel it or
no--present an appearance of contrition. I counsel it for the good
of all. He is just like a woman, and where his feelings are offended
he wants utter subservience. He has you in town, and he does not see
you:--now you know that he and I are not in communication: we have
likewise our differences:--Well, he has you in town, and he holds
aloof:--he is trying you, my dear Richard. No: he is not at Raynham:
I do not know where he is. He is trying you, child, and you must be
patient. You must convince him that you do not care utterly for your
own gratification. If this person--I wish to speak of her with
respect, for your sake--well, if she loves you _at all_--if, I say,
she loves you _one atom_, she will repeat my solicitations for you
to stay and patiently wait here till he consents to see you. I tell
you candidly, it's your only chance of ever getting him to receive
_her_. That you should know. And now, Richard, I may add that there
is something else you should know. You should know that it depends
entirely upon your conduct now, whether you are to see your father's
heart for ever divided from you, and a new family at Raynham. You do
not understand? I will explain. Brothers and sisters are excellent
things for young people, but a new brood of them can hardly be
acceptable to a young man. In fact, they are, and must be, aliens. I
only tell you what I have heard on good authority. Don't you
understand now? Foolish boy! if you do not humour him, he will marry
her. Oh! I am sure of it. I know it. And this you will drive him to.
I do not warn you on the score of your prospects, but of your
feelings. I should regard such a contingency, Richard, as a final
division between you. Think of the scandal! but alas, that is the
least of the evils."
It was Mrs. Doria's object to produce an impression, and avoid an
argument. She therefore left him as soon as she had, as she
supposed, made her mark on the young man. Richard was very silent
during the speech, and save for an exclamation or so, had listened
attentively. He pondered on what his aunt said. He loved Lady
Blandish, and yet he did not wish to see her Lady Feverel. Mrs.
Doria laid painful stress on the scandal, and though he did not
give his mind to this, he thought of it. He thought of his mother.
Where was she? But most his thoughts recurred to his father, and
something akin to jealousy slowly awakened his heart to him. He had
given him up, and had not latterly felt extremely filial; but he
could not bear the idea of a division in the love of which he had
ever been the idol and sole object. And such a man, too! so good! so
generous! If it was jealousy that roused the young man's heart to
his father, the better part of love was also revived in it. He
thought of old days: of his father's forbearance, his own
wilfulness. He looked on himself, and what he had done, with the
eyes of such a man. He determined to do all he could to regain his
favour.
Mrs. Doria learnt from Adrian in the evening that her nephew
intended waiting in town another week.
"That will do," smiled Mrs. Doria. "He will be more patient at the
end of a week."
"Oh! does patience beget patience?" said Adrian. "I was not aware it
was a propagating virtue. I surrender him to you. I shan't be able
to hold him in after one week more. I assure you, my dear aunt, he's
already"....
"Thank you, no explanation," Mrs. Doria begged.
When Richard saw her next, he was informed that she had received a
most satisfactory letter from Mrs. John Todhunter: quite a glowing
account of John's behaviour: but on Richard's desiring to know the
words Clare had written, Mrs. Doria objected to be explicit, and
shot into worldly gossip.
"Clare seldom glows," said Richard.
"No, I mean _for her_," his aunt remarked. "Don't look like your
father, child."
"I should like to have seen the letter," said Richard.
Mrs. Doria did not propose to show it.