“We will talk, my dear,” she said, “now you are practical.  I suppose, by the way, he has not proposed?”

Mary shook her head.

“That is it, Aunt Marcelle!  That is exactly what I want to prevent.  Is—­is he going to?”

Lady Garnett smiled, and her smile had a very definite quality indeed.

“I would not cherish any false hopes, my dear.  Charles Sylvester is a young man—­not so very young though, by the way—­whose conclusions are very slow, but when they arrive, mon Dieu! they are durable.  I am sure he is terribly tenacious.  It took him a long time to conclude that he was in love with you; at first, you know, he was a little troubled about your fortune, but at last he came to that conclusion—­at Lucerne.”

“Oh, at Lucerne!” protested the young girl with a nervous laugh.  “Surely not there!”

“It was precisely at Lucerne,” continued Lady Garnett, “that he decided you would make him an adorable wife, and, in effect, it was a considerable piece of wisdom.  And since then his conclusions have been more rapid.  The last has been that he will certainly marry you—­with or without a dot—­before the elections.  You are serious, you know, my dear, though not so serious as he believes; you are a girl of intelligence, and he is going to stand for some place or other, and candidates with clever wives often obtain a majority over candidates who are clever but have no wives.  Yes, my dear, he is certainly going to propose.  You may postpone it by the use of great tact for a month or so; you will hardly do so for longer.”

“I don’t want to postpone it,” said Mary ruefully; “if it be inevitable, I would sooner have it over.”

“It will never be over,” remarked Lady Garnett decisively.  “Did I not say that he was tenacious—­comme on ne l’est plus?  You may refuse him once—­twice; it will all be to go over again and again, until you end by accepting him.”

“Oh, Aunt Marcelle!” protested the young girl, with little flush of righteous wrath.

“After all,” continued the elder lady, ignoring her interruption, “are you so very sure that—­that it would not do?  There are many worse men in the world than Sylvester.  Both my husbands were profligates, in addition to being fools.  At any rate, this dear Charles is very correct.  And remember, the poor man is really in love with you.”

“I know,” said Mary plaintively; “that is why I am so sorry.  He is a good man, a conscientious man, and a gentleman; and really, sometimes lately, he has been quite simple and nice.  Only——­”

Lady Garnett completed the sentence for her with an impartial shrug.

“Only he is perfectly ridiculous, and as a lover quite impossible?  My dear, I grant it you with all my heart, and I think he has all the qualities which make an excellent husband.”

As the young girl was still silent, unconvinced, she went on after a little while: