'And if you and her brother--'
'If it were not a Socialist gathering.'
Richard uncrossed his legs and sat for a moment looking into the
fire. Then he turned suddenly.
'Mrs. Waltham, may I ask her myself?'
She was visibly agitated. There was this time no affectation in the
tremulous lips and the troublous, unsteady eyes. Mrs. Waltham was
not by nature the scheming mother who is indifferent to the upshot
if she can once get her daughter loyally bound to a man of money.
Adela's happiness was a very real care to her; she would never have
opposed an unobjectionable union on which she found her daughter's
heart bent, but circumstances had a second time made offer of
brilliant advantages, and she had grown to deem it an ordinance of
the higher powers that Adela should marry possessions. She flattered
herself that her study of Mutimer's character had been profound; the
necessity of making such a study excused, she thought, any little
excess of familiarity in which she had indulged, for it had long
been clear to her that Mutimer would some day make an offer. He
lacked polish, it was true, but really he was more a gentleman than
a great many whose right to the name was never contested. And then
he had distinctly high aims: such a man could never be brutal in the
privacy of his home.
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