Page:Walpole - Fortitude.djvu/292

 “Well, it's no business of ours—” Bobby's usual tolerant complacency.

“It is. Clare might be a fine creature if she didn't let herself be spoiled in this way. She's perpetually selfish and she ought to be told so.”

“We're all perpetually selfish,” said Bobby who began to be sorry for Peter.

“Oh! no, we're not. I'm very fond of Clare but I don't envy the man who marries her. There's no one in the world more delightful when she has her own way and things go smoothly, but they've wrapped her up in cotton wool to such an extent that she simply doesn't know how to live out of it. She's positively terrified of Life.”

This, as Alice had intended, was too much for Peter. He burst out—

“I think Miss Rossiter's the pluckiest girl I've ever met. She's afraid of nothing.”

“Except of being uncomfortable,” Alice retorted. “That frightens her into fits. Make her uncomfortable, Peter, and you'll see—”

And, red in the face, Peter answered—“I don't think you ought to talk of any one who's so fond of you behind her back in that way—”

“Oh! I say just the same to her face. I'm always telling her these things and she always agrees and then's just as selfish at ever. That absurd little father of hers has spoilt her!”

Spoilt! Clare spoilt! Peter smiled darkly. Alice Galleon—delightful woman though she was, of course couldn't endure that another woman should receive such praise—Jealousy! Ah!

And the aged and weighty author of “Reuben Hallard,” to whom the world was naturally an open book, and life known to its foundations, nodded to himself. How people, intelligent enough in other ways, could be so short-sighted!

Afterwards, when they were alone, Bobby took him in hand—

“You're in love with Clare Rossiter, Peter,” he said.

“Yes, I am,” Peter answered defiantly.

“But you've known her so short a time!”

“What's that to do with it?”