I
have heard that some one else was a little epris in that quarter. How
does Clive bear the news, my dear Colonel?"
"He has long expected it," says the Colonel, rising: "and I left him very
cheerful at breakfast this morning."
"Send him to see us, the naughty boy!" cries Maria. "We don't change; we
remember old times, to us he will ever be welcome!" And with this
confirmation of Madame de Florac's news, Thomas Newcome walked sadly
homewards.
And now Thomas Newcome had to break the news to his son; who received the
shot in such a way as caused his friends and confidants to admire his
high spirit. He said he had long been expecting some such announcement:
it was many months since Ethel had prepared him for it. Under her
peculiar circumstances he did not see how she could act otherwise than
she had done. And he narrated to the Colonel the substance of the
conversation which the two young people had had together several months
before, in Madame de Florac's garden.
Clive's father did not tell his son of his own bootless negotiation with
Barnes Newcome.
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