He relieved her in his abrupt
but not unkindly fashion. "Well, when is it to be?"
"It?"
"Your marriage."
"Oh, not for some time. There's no hurry."
It might have struck the practical Mr. Rushbrook that, even considered
as a desirable business affair, the prospective completion of
this contract provoked neither frank satisfaction nor conventional
dissimulation on the part of the young lady, for he regarded her calm
but slightly wearied expression fixedly. But he only said: "Then I shall
say nothing of this interview to Mr. Leyton?"
"As you please. It really matters little. Indeed, I suppose I was rather
foolish in coming at all, and wasting your valuable time for nothing."
She had risen, as if taking his last question in the significance of a
parting suggestion, and was straightening her tall figure, preparatory
to putting on her cloak. As she reached it, he stepped forward, and
lifted it from the chair to assist her. The act was so unprecedented, as
Mr. Rushbrook never indulged in those minor masculine courtesies, that
she was momentarily as confused as a younger girl at the gallantry of a
younger man.
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