that escapade--I mean, when she ran away from Lady Gosstre's?"
"We scarcely alluded to the subject, or permitted her to."
"Or permitted her to!" Wilfrid echoed, with a grimace. "And she's cheerful now?"
"Quite."
"I mean, she doesn't mope?"
"Why should she?"
Cornelia had been too hard-pressed to have suspicion the questions were an immense relief.
Wilfrid mused gloomily. Cornelia spoke further of Emilia, and her delight in the visits of Mr. Powys, who spent hours with her, like a man fascinated. She flowed on, little aware that she was fast restoring to Wilfrid all his judicial severity.
He said, at last: "I suppose there's no engagement existing?"
"Engagement?"
"You have not, what they call, plighted your troth to the man?"
Cornelia struggled for evasion. She recognized the fruitlessness of the effort, and abandoning it stood up.
"I am engaged to no one."
"Well, I should hope not," said Wilfrid. "An engagement might be broken."
"Not by me."
"It might, is all that I say. A romantic sentiment is tougher. Now, I have been straightforward with you: will you be with me? I shall not hurt the man, or wound his feelings."
He paused; but it was to find that no admission of the truth, save what oozed out in absence of speech, was to be expected. She seemed, after the fashion of women, to have got accustomed to the new atmosphere into which he had dragged her, without any conception of a forward movement.
"I see I must explain to you how we are situated," said Wilfrid. "We are in a serious plight. You should be civil to this woman for several reasons--for your father's sake and your own. She is very rich."
"Oh, Wilfrid!"
"Well, I find money well thought of everywhere."
"Has your late school been good for you?"
"This woman, I repeat, is rich, and we want money. Oh! not the ordinary notion of wanting money, but the more we have the more power we have. Our position depends on it."
"Yes, if we can be tempted to think so," flashed Cornelia.
"Our position depends on it. If you posture, and are poor, you provoke ridicule: and to think of scorning money, is a piece of folly no girls of condition are guilty of. Now, you know I am fond of you; so I'll tell you this: you have a chance; don't miss it. Something unpleasant is threatening; but you may escape it. It would be madness to throw such a chance away, and it is your duty to take advantage of it. What is there plainer? You are engaged to no one."
Cornelia came timidly close to him. "Pray, be explicit!"
"Well!--this offer."
"Yes; but what--there is something to escape from."
Wilfrid deliberately replied: "There is no doubt of the Pater's intentions with regard to Mrs. Chump."
"He means...?"
"He means to marry her."
"And you, Wilfrid?"
"Well, of course, he cuts me out. There--there! forgive me: but what can I do?"
"Do you conspire--Wilfrid, is it possible?--are you an accomplice in the degradation of our house?"
Cornelia had regained her courage, perforce of wrath. Wilfrid's singular grey eyes shot an odd look at her. He is to be excused for not perceiving the grandeur of the structure menaced; for it was invisible to all the world, though a real fabric.
"If Mrs. Chump were poor, I should think the Pater demented," he said. "As it is--! well, as it is, there's grist to the mill, wind to the organ. You must be aware" (and he leaned over to her with his most suspicious gentleness of tone) "you are aware that all organs must be fed; but you will make a terrible mistake if you suppose for a moment that the human organ requires the same sort of feeding as the one in Hillford Church."
"Good-night," said Cornelia, closing her lips, as if for good.
Wilfrid pressed her hand. As she was going, the springs of kindness in his heart caused him to say "Forgive me, if I seemed rough."
"Yes, dear Wilfrid; even brutality, rather than your exultation over the wreck of what was noble in you."
With which phrase Cornelia swept from the room.
CHAPTER XVI
"Seen Wilfrid?" was Mr. Pole's first cheery call to his daughters, on his return. An answer on that head did not seem to be required by him, for he went on: "Ah the boy's improved. That place over there, Stornley, does him as much good as the Army did, as to setting him up, you know; common sense, and a ready way of speaking and thinking. He sees a thing now. Well, Martha, what do you,--eh? what's your opinion?"
Mrs. Chump was addressed. "Pole," she said, fanning her cheek with vehement languor, "don't ask me! my heart's gone to the young fella."
In pursuance of a determination to which the ladies of Brookfield had come, Adela, following her sprightly fancy, now gave the lead in affability toward Mrs. Chump.
"Has the conqueror run away with it to bury it?" she laughed.
"Och! won't he know what it is to be a widde!" cried Mrs. Chump. "A widde's heart takes aim and flies straight as a bullet; and the hearts o' you garls, they're like whiffs o' tobacca, curlin' and wrigglin' and not knowin' where they're goin'. Marry 'em, Pole! marry 'em!" Mrs. Chump gesticulated, with two dangling hands. "They're nice garls; but, lord! they naver see a man, and they're stuputly contented, and want to remain garls; and, don't ye see, it was naver meant to be? Says I to Mr. Wilfrud (and he agreed with me), ye might say, nice sour grapes, as well as nice garls, if the creatures think o' stoppin' where they are, and what they are. It's horrud; and, upon my honour, my heart aches for 'm!"
Mr. Pole threw an uneasy side-glance of inquisition at his daughters, to mark how they bore this unaccustomed language, and haply intercede between the unworthy woman and their judgement of her. But the ladies merely smiled. Placidly triumphant in its endurance, the smile said: "We decline even to feel such a martyrdom as this."
"Well, you know, Martha; I," he said, "I--no father could wish--eh? if you could manage to persuade them not to be so fond of me. They must think of their future, of course. They won't always have a home--a father, a father, I mean. God grant they may never want!--eh? the dinner; boh! let's in to dinner. Ma'am!"
He bowed an arm to Mrs. Chump, who took it, with a scared look at him: "Why, if ye haven't got a tear in your eye, Pole?"
"Nonsense,
