At the close of breakfast, however, he made an effort at expostulation.

'You will make the man believe you're in love with him,' he said, and in fact he could have chanced on no happier objection to present to her.

Clarice flushed to the temples.

Sidney Mallinson, Mrs.
Willoughby, and now her father! All three had made the same suggestion, and the repetition of it vexed her pride.

There were others they might have said it of with more appearance of truth, she thought: Sidney Mallinson himself, for instance, or even Percy Conway.