"I suppose," he replied, _en vrai fils de sa mère_, "that there is some one else?"
He turned as he spoke, but Dora's parasol was too quick for him.
"Please do not let us be like people in books," she said. "There is no necessity to go into side issues at all. You have asked me to marry you. I can never marry you. There is the whole question and the whole answer. I say nothing to you about finding somebody worthier, or any nonsense of that sort. Please spare me the usual--impertinences--about there being somebody else."
The word found its mark. Arthur Agar caught his breath, but made no answer.
They were among the well-dressed throng now crowding back to the chairs.
When Arthur had handed Dora over to the care of Lady Mazerod he lifted his hat and took his departure with that perfect _savoir faire_ which was his _forte_.
"To sum up all, he has the worst fault-a husband can have, he's not my choice."
There is something doubtful in a love-making that is in more than two pairs of hands. This is a day of syndicates. The strength that lies in union is cultivated nowadays with much assiduity. But in matters of love the case is not yet altered, and never will be. It is a matter for two people to decide between themselves, and all interference is mistaken and deplorable. It is usually, one notices, those persons who are incapable of the feeling themselves who seek to interfere in the affairs of others.
That one of the principals should seek aid in such interference proves without appeal that he does not know his business. Such aid as this Arthur Agar had sought. He had, as Dora suspected, written to his mother, with full particulars of the conversation beneath the Hurlingham trees. He had laid before her many arguments, which, by reason of their effeminacy, appealed to her illogical mind, proving that Dora could not do better than marry him. The arrangement, he argued, was satisfactory from whatever point of view it might be taken; and, finally, he begged his mother to try and succeed where he had failed. He did not propose that Mrs. Agar should appeal to Dora; not because such a course was repellent, but merely because he knew a better. He suggested that Mrs. Agar should sound Mr. Glynde upon the matter.