“I have already asked Mr. Lindley,” said the clergyman, while suddenly she looked with aversion at his little knees, “if he would consent to my proposal.” He was aware of his own disadvantage, but his will was set.

She went cold as she sat, and impervious, almost as if she had become stone. He waited a moment nervously. He would not persuade her. He himself never even heard persuasion, but pursued his own course. He looked at her, sure of himself, unsure of her, and said:

“Will you become my wife, Mary·”

Still her heart was hard and cold. She sat proudly.

“I should like to speak to mama first,” she said.

“Very well,” replied Mr. Massy. And in a moment he padded away.

Mary went to her mother. She was cold and reserved.

“Mr. Massy has asked me to marry him, mama,” she said. Mrs. Lindley went on staring at her book. She was cramped in her feeling.

“Well, and what did you say·”

They were both keeping calm and cold.

“I said I would speak to you before answering him.”

This was equivalent to a question. Mrs. Lindley did not want to reply to it. She shifted her heavy form irritably on the couch. Miss Mary sat calm and straight, with closed mouth.

“Your father thinks it would not be a bad match,” said the mother, as if casually.

Nothing more was said. Everybody remained cold and shutoff. Miss Mary did not speak to Miss Louisa; the Reverend Ernest Lindley kept out of sight.

At evening Miss Mary accepted Mr. Massy.

“Yes, I will marry you,” she said, with even a little movement of tenderness towards him. He was embarrassed, but satisfied. She could see him making some movement towards her, could feel the male in him, something cold and triumphant, asserting itself. She sat rigid, and waited.

When Miss Louisa knew, she was silent with bitter anger against everybody, even against Mary. She felt her faith wounded. Did the real things to her not matter after all· She wanted to get away. She thought of Mr. Massy. He had some curious power, some unanswerable right. He was a will that they could not controvert. Suddenly a flush started in her. If he had come to her she would have flipped him out of the room. He was never going to touch her. And she was glad. She was glad that her blood would rise and exterminate the little man, if he came too near to her, no matter how her judgment was paralysed by him, no matter how he moved in abstract goodness. She thought she was perverse to be glad, but glad she was. “I would just flip him out of the room,” she said, and she derived great satisfaction from the open statement. Nevertheless, perhaps she ought still to feel that Mary, on her plane, was a higher being than herself. But then Mary was Mary, and she was Louisa, and that also was inalterable.