Page:The Aspern Papers.djvu/173

 she was a regular little flower. (The little flower was nearly three years older than himself.) Apart from this he had not alluded to her and had taken up no allusion of mine. Mrs. Pallant informed me again (for which I was prepared) that I was quite too primitive; and then she said: 'We needn't discuss the matter if you don't wish to, but I happen to know—how I obtained my knowledge is not important—that the moment Mr. Pringle should propose to my daughter she would gobble him down. Surely it's a detail worth mentioning to you.'

'Very good. I will sound him. I will look into the matter to-night.'

'Don't, don't; you will spoil everything!' she murmured, in a peculiar tone of discouragement. 'Take him off—that's the only thing.'

I did not at all like the idea of taking him off; it seemed too summary, unnecessarily violent, even if presented to him on specious grounds; and, moreover, as I had told Mrs. Pallant, I really had no wish to move. I did not consider it a part of my bargain with my sister that, with my middle-aged habits, I should duck and dodge about Europe. So I said: 'Should you really object to the boy so much as a son-in-law? After all he's a good fellow and a gentleman.'

'My poor friend, you are too superficial—too frivolous,' Mrs Pallant rejoined, with considerable bitterness.

There was a vibration of contempt in this which nettled me, so that I exclaimed, 'Possibly; but it seems odd that a lesson in consistency should come from you.'