"
The words, when uttered, seemed a good deal less significant
than they had sounded to his inner ear; and Anna replied
without surprise: "Of course. It's inevitable that she
should. But we shall bring her round in time." Under the
dripping dome she raised her face to his. "Don't you
remember what you said the day before yesterday? 'Together
we can't fail to pull it off for him!' I've told Owen that,
so you're pledged and there's no going back."
The day before yesterday! Was it possible that, no longer
ago, life had seemed a sufficiently simple business for a
sane man to hazard such assurances?
"Anna," he questioned her abruptly, "why are you so anxious
for this marriage?"
She stopped short to face him. "Why? But surely I've
explained to you--or rather I've hardly had to, you seemed
so in sympathy with my reasons!"
"I didn't know, then, who it was that Owen wanted to marry."
The words were out with a spring and he felt a clearer air
in his brain. But her logic hemmed him in.
"You knew yesterday; and you assured me then that you hadn't
a word to say----"
"Against Miss Viner?" The name, once uttered, sounded on and
on in his ears. "Of course not. But that doesn't
necessarily imply that I think her a good match for Owen."
Anna made no immediate answer. When she spoke it was to
question: "Why don't you think her a good match for Owen?"
"Well--Madame de Chantelle's reasons seem to me not quite as
negligible as you think.
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