It was the best tribute that Clarice and Ellen could pay to the occasion that they understood that, much as their several lives had profited by the partnership, they were still and naturally outside of it.
On this occasion, however, it was impossible for Peter to keep Mrs.
Lessing out of the background of his consciousness, because of the part her suggestion of the morning played in new realization of himself as the rich Mr.Weatheral of Pleasanton.

He credited her with sufficient knowledge of his character to have egged Julian on to the reminder as a part of the game she had played with him for the past two or three years, by which Peter was to be instated in a life more in keeping with his opportunities.
It was a game Clarice played with life everywhere, coaxing it to yield its choicest bloom to her.

She had an instinct for choiceness like a hummingbird, darting here and there for sweetness.

Her flutterings were never of uncertainty but such as kept her in the perfect airy poise.

If she wanted marriage for Peter it was because she could imagine nothing better for anybody than a marriage like hers, and if she chose this time for letting him know that she was thinking of it, it was because in those terms she could bring closest to him his new-found possibilities.
If she could have reached Peter with the personal certainty of riches by explaining to him how far his dollars would stretch end to end, or how many acres of postage stamps he could buy with them, she might have thought less of him on that account, but she would have helped him to understanding even on those terms.