Now do, dear George, press the question, and let everything be
settled as soon as possible, or I have an apprehension that somehow or
other my sister will slip through your fingers."
Mr. Fairfax looked wonderingly at his charioteer.
"Has she said anything to put this fancy into your head?" he asked, with
gravity rather than alarm.
"Said anything! O dear, no. Geraldine is the last person to talk about her
own feelings. But I know her so well," concluded Lady Laura with a solemn
air.
After this there came a brief silence. George Fairfax was a little puzzled
by my lady's diplomacy, and perhaps just a little disgusted. Again and
again he told himself that this union with Geraldine Challoner was the very
best thing that could happen to him; it would bring him to anchor, at any
rate, and he had been such mere driftwood until now. But he wanted to feel
himself quite a free agent, and this pressing-on of the marriage by Lady
Laura was in some manner discordant with his sense of the fitness of
things. It looked a little like manoeuvring; yet after all she was quite
sincere, perhaps, and did really apprehend her father's death intervening
to postpone the wedding.
He would not remain long silent, lest she should fancy him displeased, and
proceeded presently to pay her some compliments upon the roans, and on her
driving; after which they rattled on pleasantly enough till they came to
the green slope of a hill, where there was a rude rustic stand and a railed
racecourse, with a sprinkling of carriages on one side and gipsy-tents on
the other.
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