thronged and fashionable? Have you no feeling that you ought to choose your friends for certain reasons of your own? I admit there is one reason here. They have a great deal of money, and it is thought possible that he may get some of it by falsely swearing to a girl that he loves her. After what you have heard, are the Melmottes people with whom you would wish to be connected?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I do. I know very well. They are absolutely disgraceful. A social connection with the first crossing-sweeper would be less objectionable.’ He spoke with a degree of energy of which he was himself altogether unaware. He knit his brows, and his eyes flashed, and his nostrils were extended. Of course she thought of his own offer to herself. Of course, her mind at once conceived — not that the Melmotte connection could ever really affect him, for she felt sure that she would never accept his offer — but that he might think that he would be so affected. Of course he resented the feeling which she thus attributed to him. But, in truth, he was much too simple-minded for any such complex idea. ‘Felix,’ he continued, ‘has already descended so far that I cannot pretend to be anxious as to what houses he may frequent. But I should be sorry to think that you should often be seen at Mr Melmotte’s.’
‘I think, Mr Carbury, that mamma will take care that I am not taken where I ought not to be taken.’
‘I wish you to have some opinion of your own as to what is proper for you.’
‘I hope I have. I am sorry you should think that I have not.’
‘I am old-fashioned, Hetta.’
‘And we belong to a newer and worse sort of world. I dare say it is so. You have been always very kind, but I almost doubt whether you can change us, now. I have sometimes thought that you and mamma were hardly fit for each other.’
‘I have thought that you and I were — or possibly might be fit for each other.’
‘Oh — as for me. I shall always take mamma’s side. If mamma chooses to go to the Melmottes I shall certainly go with her. If that is contamination, I suppose I must be contaminated. I don’t see why I’m to consider myself better than any one else.’
‘I have always thought that you were better than any one else.’
‘That was before I went to the Melmottes. I am sure you have altered your opinion now. Indeed you have told me so. I am afraid, Mr Carbury, you must go your way, and we must go ours.’
He looked into her face as she spoke, and gradually began to perceive the working of her mind. He was so true to himself that he did not understand that there should be with her even that violet-coloured tinge of prevarication which women assume as an additional charm. Could she really have thought that he was attending to his own possible future interests when he warned her as to the making of new acquaintances?
‘For myself.’ he said, putting out his hand and making a slight vain effort to get hold of hers, ‘I have only one wish in the world; and that is, to travel the same road with you. I do not say that you ought to wish it too; but you ought to know that I am sincere. When I spoke of the Melmottes did you believe that I was thinking of myself?’
‘Oh no; — how should I?’
‘I was speaking to you then as to a cousin who might regard me as an elder brother. No contact with legions of Melmottes could make you other to me than the woman on whom my heart has settled. Even were you in truth disgraced could disgrace touch one so pure as you it would be the same. I love you so well that I have already taken you for better or for worse. I cannot change. My nature is too stubborn for such changes. Have you a word to say to comfort me?’ She turned away her head, but did not answer him at once. ‘Do you understand how much I am in need of comfort?’
‘You can do very well without comfort from me.’
‘No, indeed. I shall live, no doubt; but I shall not do very well. As it is, I am not doing at all well. I am becoming sour and moody, and ill at ease with my friends. I would have you believe me, at any rate, when I say I love you.’
‘I suppose you mean something.’
‘I mean a great deal, dear. I mean all that a man can mean. That is it. You hardly understand that I am serious to the extent of ecstatic joy on the one side, and utter indifference to the world on the other. I shall never give it up till I learn that you are to be married to some one else.’
‘What can I say, Mr Carbury?’
‘That you will love me.’
‘But if I don’t?’
‘Say that you will try.’
‘No; I will not say that. Love should come without a struggle. I don’t know how one person is to try to love another in that way. I like you very much; but being married is such a terrible thing.’
‘It would not be terrible to me, dear.’
‘Yes; — when you found that I was too young for your tastes.’
‘I shall persevere, you know. Will you assure me of this — that if you promise your hand to another man you will let me know at once?’
‘I suppose I may promise that,’ she said, after pausing for a moment.
‘There is no one as yet?’
‘There is no one. But, Mr Carbury, you have no right to question me. I don’t think it generous. I allow you to say things that nobody else could say because you are a cousin and because mamma trusts you so much. No one but mamma has a right to ask me whether I care for any one.’
‘Are you angry with me?’
‘No.’
‘If I have offended you it is because I love you so dearly.’
‘I am not offended, but I don’t like to be questioned by a gentleman. I don’t think any girl would like it. I am not to tell everybody all that happens.’
‘Perhaps when you reflect how much of my happiness depends upon it you will forgive me. Good-bye now.’ She put out her hand to him and allowed it to remain in his for a moment. ‘When I walk about the old shrubberies at Carbury where we used to be together, I am always asking myself what chance there is of your walking there as the mistress.’
‘There is no chance.’
‘I am, of course, prepared to hear you say so. Well; good-bye, and may God bless you.’
The man had no poetry about him. He did not even care for romance. All the outside belongings of love which are so pleasant to many men and which to many women afford the one sweetness in life which they really relish, were nothing to him. There are both men and women to whom even the delays and disappointments of love are charming, even when they exist to the detriment of hope. It is sweet to such persons to be melancholy, sweet to pine, sweet to feel that they are now wretched after a romantic fashion as have been those heroes and heroines of whose sufferings they have read in poetry. But there was nothing of this with Roger Carbury. He had, as he believed, found the woman that he really wanted, who was worthy of his love, and now, having fixed his heart upon her, he longed for her with an amazing longing. He had spoken the simple truth when he declared that life
