Clifford, his wife, and discussing--what
subject of all others on earth but the personality of Cyril Waring?
"Well, it was an awkward situation for Elma, of course, I admit,"
he was chirping out cheerfully, with his back turned by pure force
of habit to the empty grate, and his hands crossed behind him.
"I don't deny it was an awkward situation. Still, there's no harm
done, I hope and trust. Elma's happily not a fanciful or foolishly
susceptible sort of girl. She sees it's a case for mere ordinary
gratitude. And gratitude, in my opinion, towards a person in his
position, is sufficiently expressed once for all by letter. There's
no reason on earth she should ever again see or hear any more of
him."
"But girls are so romantic," Mrs. Clifford put in doubtfully, with
an anxious air. She herself was by no means romantic to look at,
being, indeed, a person of a certain age, with a plump, matronly
figure, and very staid of countenance; yet there was something in
her eye, for all that, that recalled at times the vivid keenness of
Elma's, and her cheek had once been as delicate and creamy a brown
as her pretty daughter's. "Girls are so romantic," Mrs. Clifford
repeated once more, in a dreamy way, "and she was evidently impressed
by him.
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