XXV
AT STAPYLTON
It was about a week before his encounter with Vaughan in the park--andon a fine autumn day--that the Honourable Bob, walking with Sir Robertby the Garden Pool, allowed his eyes to travel over the prospect. Thesmooth-shaven lawns, the stately, lichened house, the far-stretchingpark, with its beech-knolls and slopes of verdure, he found all fair;and when to these, when to the picture on which his bodily eyesrested, that portrait of Mary--Mary, in white muslin and blue ribbons,bowing her graceful head while Sir Robert read prayers--which hecarried in his memory, he told himself that he was an uncommonly happyfellow.
Beauty he might have had, wealth he might have had, family too. But toalight on all in such perfection, to lose his heart where his headapproved the step, was a gift of fortune so rare, that as he struttedand talked by the side of his host, his face beamed with ineffablegood-humour.
Nevertheless for a few moments silence had fallen between the two; andgradually Sir Robert's face had assumed a grave and melancholy look.He sighed more than once, and when he spoke, it was to repeat indifferent words what he had already said.
"Certainly, you may speak," he said, in a tone of some formality. "AndI have little doubt, Mr. Flixton, that your overtures will be receivedas they deserve."
"Yes? Yes? You think so?" Flixton answered with manifest delight. "Youreally think so, Sir Robert, do you?"
"I think so," his host replied. "Not only because your suit is inevery way eligible, and one which does us honour." He bowedcourteously as he uttered the compliment. "But because, Mr. Flixton,for docility--and I think a husband may congratulate himself on thefact----"
"To be sure! To be sure!" Flixton cried, not permitting him to finish."Yes, Sir Robert, capital! You mean that if I am not a happy man----"
"It will not be the fault of your wife," Sir Robert said; rememberingwith a faint twinge of conscience that the Honourable Bob's past hadnot been without its histories.
"No! By gad, Sir Robert, no! You're quite right! She's got an ank----"He stopped abruptly, his mouth open; bethinking himself, when itwas almost too late, that her father was not the person to whom todetail her personal charms.
But Sir Robert had not divined the end of the sentence. He was atrifle deaf. "Yes?" he said.
"She's an--an--animated manner, I was going to say," Flixton answeredwith more readiness than fervour. And he blessed himself for hispresence of mind.
"Animated? Yes, but gentle also," Sir Robert replied, well-nighpurring as he did so. "I should say that gentleness, and--and indeed,my dear fellow, goodness, were the--but perhaps I am saying more thanI should."
"Not at all!" Flixton answered with heartiness. "Gad, I could listento you all day, Sir Robert."
He had listened, indeed, during a large part of the last week; andwith so much effect, that those histories to which reference has beenmade, had almost faded from the elder man's mind. Flixton seemed tohim a hearty, manly young fellow, a little boastful and self-assertiveperhaps--but remarkably sound. A soldier, who asked nothing betterthan to put down the rabble rout which was troubling the country; aTory, of precisely his, Sir Robert's opinions; the younger son of apeer, and a West Country peer to boot. In fine, a staunch, open-airpatrician, with good old-fashioned instincts, and none of thatintellectual conceit, none of those cranks, and fads, and follies,which had ruined a man who also might have been Sir Robert'sson-in-law.
Well that man, Sir Robert, perhaps because his conscience pricked himat times by suggesting impossible doubts, was still bitterly angry. Soangry that, had the Baronet been candid, he must have acknowledgedthat the Honourable Bob's main virtue was his unlikeness to ArthurVaughan; it was in proportion as he differed from the young fellow whohad so meanly intrigued to gain his daughter's affections, thatFlixton appeared desirable to the father. Even those histories provedthat at any rate he had blood in him; while his loud good-nature, hispositiveness, as long as it marched with Sir Robert's positiveness,his short views, all gained by contrast. "I am glad he is a youngerson," the Baronet thought. "He shall take the old Vermuyden name!" Andhe lifted his handsome old chin a little higher as he pictured thehonours, that even in a changed and worsened England, might clusterabout his house. At the worst, and if the Bill passed, he had a seatalternately with the Lansdownes; and in a future, which would knownothing of Lord Lonsdale's cat-o'-nine-tails, when pocket boroughswould be rare, and great peers and landowners would be left withscarce a representative, much might be done with half a seat.
Suddenly, "Damme, Sir Robert," Flixton cried, "there is the littlebeauty--hem!--there she is, I think. With your permission I think I'lljoin her."
"By all means, by all means," Sir Robert answered indulgently. "Youneed not stand on ceremony."
Flixton waited for no more. Perhaps he had no mind to be bored, nowthat he had gained what he wanted. He hurried after the slim figurewith the white floating skirts and the Leghorn hat, which haddescended the steps of the house, moved lightly across the lawns--andvanished. He guessed, however, whither she was bound. He knew that shehad a liking for walking in the wilderness behind the house; a beechwood which was already beginning to put on its autumn glory. And sureenough, hastening to a point among the smooth grey trunks where threepaths met, he discerned her a hundred paces away, walking slowly fromhim with her eyes raised.
"Squirrels!" Flixton thought. And he made up his mind to bring theterriers and have a hunt on the following Sunday afternoon. In themeantime he had another quarry in view, and he made after thewhite-gowned figure.
She heard his tread on the carpet of dry beech leaves, and she turnedand saw him. She had come out on purpose that she might be alone, atliberty to think at her ease and orientate herself, in relation to hernew environment, and the fresh and astonishing views which werecontinually opening before her. Or, perhaps, that was but her pretext:an easy explanation of silence and solitude, which might suffice forher father and possibly for Miss Sibson. For, for certain, amid sombrethoughts of her mother, she thought more often and more sombrely inthese days of another; of happiness which had been forfeited by herown act; of weakness, and cowardice, and ingratitude; of a man's headthat stooped to her adorably, and then again of a man's eyes thatburned her with contempt.
It is probable, therefore, that she was not overjoyed when she saw Mr.Flixton. But Sir Robert was so far right in his estimate of her naturethat she hated to give pain. It was there, perhaps, that she was weak.And so, seeing the Honourable Bob, she smiled pleasantly on him.
"You have discovered a favourite haunt of mine," she said. She did notadd that she spent a few minutes of every day there: that the smoothbeech-trunks knew the touch of her burning cheeks, and the rustle ofthe falling leaves the whisper of her penitence. Daily she returned byway of the Kennel Path and there breathed a prayer for her mother,where a mother's arms had first enfolded her, and a mother's kisseswon her love. What she did add was, "I often come here."
"I know you do," the Honourable Bob answered, with a look ofadmiration. "I assure you, Miss Mary, I could astonish you with thethings I know about you!"
"Really!"
"Oh, yes. Really."
There was a significant chuckle in his voice which brought the bloodto her check. But she was determined to ignore its meaning. "You areobservant?" she said.
"Of those--yes, by Jove, I am--of those, I--admire," he rejoined. Hehad it on his tongue to say "those I love," but she turned her eyes onhim at the critical moment, and though he was doing a thing he hadoften done, and he had impudence enough, his tongue failed him. Thereare women so naturally modest that until the one man who awakens theheart appears, it seems an outrage to speak to them of love. MaryVermuyden, perhaps by reason of her bringing up, was one of these; andthough Flixton had had little to do with women of her kind, herecognised the fact and bowed to it. He came, having her father'sleave to speak to her; yet he found himself less at his ease, than onmany a less legitimate occasion. "
Yes, by Jove," he repeated. "Iobserve them, I can tell you."
Mary laughed. "Some are more quick to notice than others," she said.
"And to notice some than others!" he rejoined, gallantly. "That iswhat I mean. Now that old girl who is with you----"
"Miss Sibson?" Mary said, setting him right with some stiffness.
"Yes! Well, she isn't young! Anyway, you don't suppose I could saywhat she wore yesterday! But what you wore, Miss Mary"--trying tocatch her eye and ogle her--"ah, couldn't I! But then you don't wearpowder on your nose, nor need it!"
"I don't wear it," she said, laughing in spite of herself. "But youdon't know what I may do some day! And for Miss Sibson, it does notmatter, Mr. Flixton, what she wears. She has one of the kindesthearts, and was one of the kindest friends I had--or could havehad--when things were different with me."
"Oh, yes, good old girl," he rejoined, "but snubby! Bitten my nose offtwo or three times, I know. And, come now, not quite an angel, youknow, Miss Mary!"
"Well," she replied, smiling, "she is not, perhaps, an angel to lookat. But----"
"She can't be! For she is not like you!" he cried. "And you are one,Miss Mary! You are the angel for me!" looking at her with impassionedeyes. "I'll never want another nor ask to see one!"
His look frightened her; she began to think he meant--something. Andshe took a new way with him. "How singular it is," she said,thoughtfully, "that people say those things in society! Because theysound so very silly to one who has not lived in your world!"
"Silly!" Flixton replied, in a tone of mortification; and for amoment he felt the check. He was really in love, to a moderate extent;and on the way to be more deeply in love were he thwarted. Thereforehe was, to a moderate extent, afraid of her. And, "Silly?" herepeated. "Oh, but I mean it, so help me! I do, indeed! It's not sillyto call you an angel, for I swear you are as beautiful as one! That'strue, anyway!"
"How many have you seen?" she asked, ridiculing him. "And whatcoloured wings had they?" But her cheek was hot. "Don't say, if youplease," she continued, before he could speak, "that you've seen me.Because that is only saying over again what you've said, Mr. Flixton.And that is worse than silly. It is dull."
"Miss Mary," he cried, pathetically, "you don't understand me! I wantto assure you--I want to make you understand----"
"Hush!" she said, cutting him short, in an earnest whisper. And,halting, she extended a hand behind her to stay him. "Please don'tspeak!" she continued. "Do you see them, the beauties? Flying roundand round the tree after one another faster than your eyes can followthem. One, two, three--three squirrels! I never saw one, do you know,until I came here," she went on, in a tone of hushed rapture. "Anduntil now I never saw them at play. Oh, who could harm them?"
He stood behind her, biting his lip with vexation; and whollyuntouched by the scene, which, whether her raptures were feigned ornot, was warrant for them. Hitherto he had had to do with women whomet him halfway; who bridled at a compliment, were alive to an_equivoque_, and knew how to simulate, if they did not feel, a softconfusion under his gaze. For this reason Mary's backwardness, herapparent unconsciousness that they were not friends of the same sex,puzzled him, nay, angered him. As she stood before him, a hand stillextended to check his advance, the sunshine which filtered through thebeech leaves cast a soft radiance on her figure. She seemed moredainty, more graceful, more virginal than aught that he had everconceived. It was in vain that he told himself, with irritation, thatshe was but a girl after all. That, under her aloofness, she was awoman like the others, as vain, passionate, flighty, as jealous asother women. He knew that he stood in awe of her. He knew that thewords which he had uttered so lightly many a time--ay, and to those towhom he had no right to address them--stuck in his throat now. Hewanted to say "I love you!" and he had the right to say it, he wascommissioned to say it. Yet he was dumb. All the boldness which he hadexhibited in her presence in Queen's Square--where another had stoodtongue-tied--was gone.
He took at last a desperate step. The girl was within arm's reach ofhim; her delicate waist, the creamy white of her slender neck, invitedhim. Be she never so innocent, never so maidenly, a kiss, he toldhimself, would awaken her. It was his experience, it was a scrap drawnfrom his store of worldly wisdom, that a woman kissed was a woman won.
True, as he thought of it, his heart began to riot, as it had notrioted from that cause since he had kissed the tobacconist's daughterat Exeter, his first essay in gallantry. But only the bold deserve thefair! And how often had he boasted that, where women were concerned,lips were made for other things than talking!
And--in a moment it was done.
Twice! Then she slipped from his grasp, and stood at bay, with flamingchecks and eyes that--that had certainly not ceased to be virginal."You! You!" she cried, barely able to articulate. "Don't touch me!"
She had been taken utterly, wholly by surprise; and the shock wasimmensely increased by the facts of her bringing up and the restraintsand conditions of school-life. In his grasp, with his breath on hercheek, all those notions about ravening wolves and the danger whichattached to beauty in low places--notions no longer applicable, hadshe taken time to reason--returned upon her in force. The man hadkissed her!
"How---how dare you?" she continued, trembling with rage andindignation.
"But your father----"
"How dare you----"
"Your father sent me," he pleaded, quite crestfallen. "He gave meleave----"
She stared at him, as at a madman. "To insult me?" she cried.
"No, but--but you won't understand!" he answered, almost querulously.He was quite chapfallen. "You don't listen to me. I want to marry you.I want you to be my wife. Your father said I might come to you,and--and ask you. And--and you'll say 'Yes,' won't you? That's a goodgirl!"
"Never!" she answered.
He stared at her, turning red. "Oh, nonsense!" he stammered. And hemade as if he would go nearer. "You don't mean it. My dear girl!Listen to me! I do love you! I do indeed! And I--I tell you what itis, I never loved any woman----"
But she looked at him in such a way that he could not go on. "Do notsay those things!" she said. And her austerity was terrible to him."And go, if you please. My father, if he sent you to me----"
"He did!"
"Then he did not," she replied with dignity, "understand my feelings."
"But--but you must marry someone," he complained. "You know--you'remaking a great fuss about nothing!"
"Nothing!" she cried, her eyes sparkling. "You insult me, Mr. Flixton,and----"
"If a man may not kiss the girl he wants to marry----"
"If she does not want to marry him?"
"But it's not as bad as that," he pleaded. "No, by Jove, it's not.You'll not be so cruel. Come, Miss Mary, listen to me a minute. Youmust marry someone, you know. You are young, and I'm sure you have theright to choose----"
"I've heard enough," she struck in, interrupting him with something ofSir Robert's hauteur. "I understand now what you meant, and I forgiveyou. But I can never be anything to you, Mr. Flixton----"
"You can be everything to me," he declared. It couldn't, it reallycouldn't be that she meant to refuse him! Finally and altogether!
"But you can be nothing to me!" she answered, cruelly--very cruellyfor her, but her cheek was tingling. "Nothing! Nothing! And that beingso, I beg that you will leave me now."
He looked at her with a mixture of supplication, resentment, chagrin.
But she showed no sign of relenting. "You really--you really do meanit?" he muttered, with a sickly smile. "Come, Miss Mary!"
"Don't! Don't!" she cried, as if his words pained her. And that wasall. "Please go! Or I shall go."
The Honourable Bob's conceit had been so far taken out of him that hefelt that he could make no farther fight. He could see no sign ofrelenting, and feeling that, with all his experience, he had playedhis cards ill, he turned away sullenly. "Oh, I will go," he said. Andhe longed to add something witty and careless. But he could not addanyth
ing. He, Bob Flixton, the hero of so many _bonnes fortunes_, tobe refused! He had laid his all, and _pour le ban motif_ at the feetof a girl who but yesterday was a little schoolmistress. And she hadrefused him! It was incredible! But, alas, it was also fact.
Mary, the moment his back was turned, hurried with downcast facetowards the Kennels; to hide her hot cheeks and calm her feelings inthe depths of the shrubbery. Oddly enough, her first thoughts wereless of that which had just happened to her than of that suit whichhad been paid to her months before. This man might love her or not;she could not tell. But Arthur Vaughan had loved her: the fashion ofthis love taught her to prize the fashion of that.
He had loved her. And if he had treated her as Mr. Flixton had treatedher? Would she have held to him, she wondered. She believed that shewould. But the mere thought set her knees trembling, made her cheeksflame afresh, filled her with rapture. So that, shamefaced,frightened, glancing this way and that, as one hunted, she longed tobe safe in her room, there to cry at her ease.
Doubtless it was natural that the incident should turn her thoughts tothat other love-making; and presently to her father's furious dislikeof that other lover. She could not understand that dislike; for theBill and the Borough, Franchise or No Franchise, were nothing to her.And the grievance, when Sir Robert had essayed to explain it, had beennothing. To her mind, Trafalgar and Waterloo and the greatness ofEngland were the work of Nelson and Wellington--at the remotest,perhaps, of Mr. Pitt and Lord Castlereagh. She could not enter intothe reasoning which attributed these and all other blessings of hercountry to a System! To a System which it seemed her lover was pledgedto overthrow.
She walked until the tumult of her thoughts had somewhat abated; andthen, still yearning for the security of her own chamber, she made forthe house. She saw nothing of Flixton, no one was stirring. Alreadyshe thought herself safe; and it was the very spirit of mischief whichbrought her, at the corner of the church, face to face with herfather. Sir Robert's brow was clouded, and the "My dear, one moment,"with which he stayed her, was pitched in a more decisive tone than hecommonly used to her.
"I wish to speak to you, Mary," he continued. "Will you come with meto the library?"
She would fain have postponed the discussion of Mr. Flixton'sproposal, which she foresaw. But her father, affectionate and gentleas he was, was still unfamiliar; and she had not the courage to makeher petition. So she accompanied him, with a sinking heart, to thelibrary. And, when he pointed to a seat, she was glad to sit down.
He took up his own position on the hearth rug; whence he looked at hergravely before he spoke. At length:
"My dear," he said, "I'm sorry for this! Though I do not blame you. Ithink that you do not understand, owing to those drawbacks of yourearly life, which have otherwise, thank God, left so slight a markupon you, that there are things which at your time of life you mustleave to--to the decision of your elders."
She looked at him. And there was not that complete docility in herlook which he expected to find. "I don't think I understand, sir," shemurmured.
"But you can easily understand this, Mary," he replied. "That younggirls of your age, without experience of life or of--of the darkerside of things, cannot be allowed to judge for themselves on alloccasions. There are sometimes circumstances to be weighed which it isnot possible to detail to them."
She closed her eyes for an instant, to collect her thoughts.
"But--but, sir," she said, "you cannot wish me to have no will--nochoice--in a matter which affects me so nearly."
"No," he said, speaking seriously and with something approachingsternness. "But that will and that choice must be guided. They shouldbe guided. Your feelings are natural--God forbid that I should thinkthem otherwise! But you must leave the decision to me."
She looked at him, aghast. She had heard, but had never believed, thatin the upper classes matches were arranged after this fashion. But tohave no will and no choice in such a thing as marriage! She must bedreaming.
"You cannot," he continued, looking at her firmly but not unkindly,"have either the knowledge of the past," with a slight grimace, as ofpain, "or the experience needful to enable you to measure the resultof the step you take. You must, therefore, let your seniors decide foryou."
"But I could never--never," she answered, with a deep blush, "marry aman without--liking him, sir."
"Marry?" Sir Robert repeated. He stared at her.
She returned the look. "I thought, sir," she faltered, with a stilldeeper blush, "that you were talking of that."
"My dear," he said, gravely, "I am referring to the subject on which Iunderstood that you requested Miss Sibson to speak to me."
"My mother?" she whispered, the colour fading quickly from her face.
He paused a moment. Then, "You would oblige me," he said, slowly andformally, "by calling her Lady Sybil Vermuyden. And not--that."
"But she is--my mother," she persisted.
He looked at her, his head slightly bowed, his lower lip thrust out."Listen," he said, with decision. "What you propose--to go to her, Imean--is impossible. Impossible, you understand. There must be an endof any thought of it!" His tone was cold, but not unkind. "The thingmust not be mentioned again, if you please," he added.
She was silent a while. Then, "Why, sir?" she asked. She spoketremulously, and with an effort. But he had not expected her to speakat all.
Yet he merely continued, as he stood on the hearth rug, to look at heraskance. "That is for me," he said, "to decide."
"But----"
"But I will tell you," he said, stiffly. "Because she has alreadyruined part of your life!"
"I forgive her, from my heart!" Mary cried.
"And ruined, also," he continued, putting the interruption aside, "agreat part of mine. At your age I do not think fit to tell you--all.It is enough, that she has robbed me of you, and deceived me. Deceivedme," he repeated, more bitterly, "through long years when you, mydaughter, might have been my comfort and--" he ended, almostinaudibly, "my joy."
He turned his back on her with the word and began to walk the room,his chin sunk on his breast, his hands clasped. It was clear to Mary,watching him with loving, pitying eyes, that his thoughts were withthe unhappy past, with the short fever, the ignoble contentions of hismarried life, or with the lonely, soured years which had followed. Shefelt that he was laying to his wife's charge the wreck of his life,and the slow dry-rot which had sapped hope, and strength, anddevelopment.
Mary waited until his step trod the carpet less hurriedly. Then, as hepaused to turn, she stepped forward.
"Yet, sir--forgive her!" she cried. And there were warm tears in hervoice.
He turned and looked at her. Possibly he was astonished at herpersistence.
"Never!" he said in a tone of finality. "Never! Let that be the end."
But Mary had been dreaming of this moment for days. And she hadresolved that, come what might, though he frown, though his tone growhard and his eye angry, though he bring to bear on her the sterncommand of his eagle visage, she would not be found lacking a secondtime. She would not again give way to her besetting weakness, andspend sleepless nights in futile remorse. Diffidence in the lonelyschoolmistress had been pardonable, had been natural. But now, if shewere indeed sprung from those who had a right to hold their headsabove the crowd, if the doffed hats which greeted her when she wentabroad, in the streets of Chippinge as well as in the lanes androads,--if these meant anything--shame on her if she proved craven.
"It cannot be the end, sir," she said, in a low voice. "For sheis--still my mother. And she is alone and ill--and she needs me."
He had begun to pace the room anew, this time with an impatient, angrystep. But at that he stood and faced her, and she needed all hercourage to support the gloom of his look. "How do you know?" he said.For Miss Sibson, discharging an ungrateful task, had not entered intodetails. "Have you seen her?"
She felt that she must judge for herself; and though her mother hadsaid something to the contrary, and hi
therto she had obeyed her, shethought it best to tell all. "Yes, sir," she said.
"When?"
"A fortnight ago?" She trembled under the growing darkness of hislook.
"Here?"
"In the grounds, sir."
"And you never told me!" he cried. "You never told me!" he repeated,with a strange glance, a glance which strove with terror to discernthe mother's features in the daughter's face. "You, too--you, too,have begun to deceive me!"
And he threw up his hands in despair.
"Oh, no! no!" Mary cried, infinitely distressed.
"But you have!" he rejoined. "You have kept this from me."
"Only, believe me, sir," she cried, eagerly, "until I could find afitting time."
"And now you want to go to her!" he answered, unheeding. "She hassuborned you! She, who has done the greatest wrong to you, has nowdone the last wrong to me!"
He began again to pace up and down the room.
"Oh, no! no!" she sobbed.
"It is so!" he answered, darting an angry glance at her. "It is so!But I shall not let you go! Do you hear, girl? I shall not let you go!I have suffered enough," he continued, with a gesture which calledthose walls to witness to the humiliations, the sorrows, theloneliness, from which he had sought refuge within them. "I willnot--suffer again! You shall not go!"
She was full of love for him, and of pity. She understood even thatgesture, and the past wretchedness to which it bore witness. And sheyearned to comfort him, and to convince him that nothing that had gonebefore, nothing that could happen in the future, would set her againsthim. Had he been seated, she would have knelt and kissed his hand, orcast herself on his breast and his love, and won him to her. But as hewalked she could not approach him, she did not know how to soften him.Yet her duty was clear. It lay beside her dying mother. Nevertheless,if he forbade her to go, if he withstood her, how was she to performit?
At length, "But if she be dying, sir," she murmured. "Will you notthen let me see her?"
He looked at her from under his heavy eyebrows. "I tell you, I willnot let you go!" he said stubbornly. "She has forfeited her right toyou. When she made you die to me--you died to her! That is mydecision. You hear me? And now--now," he continued, returning in ameasure to composure, "let there be an end!"
She stood silenced, but not conquered; knowing him more intimatelythan she had known him before; and loving him not less, but more,since pity and sympathy entered into her love and drove out fear; butassured that he was wrong. It could not be her duty to forsake: itmust be his duty to forgive. But for the present she saw that in spiteof all his efforts he was cruelly agitated, that she had stirred pangslong lulled to rest, that he had borne as much as he could bear. Andshe would not press him farther for the time.
Meanwhile he, as he stood fingering his trembling lips, was trying tobring the cunning of age to bear. He was silently forming his plan.She had been too much alone, he reflected; that was it. He hadforgotten that she was young, and that change and movement and lifeand gaiety were needful for her. This about--that woman--was anobsession, an unwholesome fancy, which a few days in a new place, andamid lively scenes, would weaken and perhaps remove. And by and by,when he thought that he could trust his voice, he spoke.
"I said, let there be an end! But--you are all I have," he continued,with emotion, "and I will say instead, let this be for a time. I musthave time to think. You want--there are many things you want that youought to have--frocks, laces, and gew-gaws," he added, with a sicklysmile, "and I know not what, that you cannot get here, nor I choosefor you. Lady Worcester has offered to take you with her to town--shegoes the day after to-morrow. I was uncertain this morning whether tosend you or not, whether I could spare you or not. Now, I say, go. Go,and when you return, Mary, we will talk again."
"And then," she said, pleading softly, "you will let me go!"
"Never!" he cried, lifting his head in a sudden, uncontrollablerecurrence of rage. "But there, there! There! there! I shall havethought it over--more at leisure. Perhaps! I don't know! I will tellyou then. I will think it over."
She saw with clear eyes that this was an evasion, that he wasdeceiving her. But she felt no resentment, only pity. She had noreason to think that her mother needed her on the instant. And muchwas gained by the mere discussion of the subject. At least he promisedto consider it: and though he meant nothing now, perhaps when he wasalone he would think of it, and more pitifully. Yes, she was sure hewould.
"I will go, if you wish it," she said, submissively. She would showherself obedient in all things lawful.
"I do wish it," he answered. "My daughter must know her way about. Go,and Lady Worcester will take care of you. And when--when you come backwe will talk. You will have things to prepare, my dear," he continued,avoiding her eyes, "a good deal to prepare, I dare say, since this issudden, and you had better go now. I think that is all."