Surely you have not told him that you have any feeling for him warmer than ordinary regard ?" Lady Desmond knew what she was doing very well.

She was perfectly sure that her daughter had pledged her troth to Owen Fitzgerald.
Indeed, if she made any mistake in the matter, it was in thinking that Clara had given a more absolute assurance of love than had in truth been extracted from her.

But she calculated, and calculated wisely, that the surest way of talking her daughter out of all hope, was to express herself as unable to believe that a child of hers would own to love for one so much beneath her, and to speak of such a marriage as a thing absolutely impossible.

Her method of acting in this manner had the effect which she desired.

The poor girl was utterly frightened, and began to fear that she had disgraced herself, though she knew that she dearly loved the man of whom her mother spoke so slightingly.
"Have you given him any promise, Clara ?" "Not a promise, mamma." "Not a promise! What then?
Have you professed any regard for him ?" But upon this Clara was again silent.
"Then I suppose I must believe that you have professed a regard for him--that you have promised to love him ?" "No, mamma; I have not promised anything.