“She will be tired tonight,” he said to himself, as he went off to his club, “and I will speak to her tomorrow.” Alice specially felt his going on this evening. When two persons had together the tedium of such a journey as that from Westmoreland up to London, there should be some feeling between them to bind them together while enjoying the comfort of the evening. Had he stayed and sat with her at her tea-table, Alice would at any rate have endeavoured to be soft with him in any discussion that might have been raised; but he went away from her at once, leaving her to think alone over the perils of the life before her. “I want to speak to you after breakfast tomorrow,” he said as he went out. Alice answered that she should be there,—as a matter of course. She scorned to tell him that she was always there,—always alone at home. She had never uttered a word of complaint, and she would not begin now.
The discussion after breakfast the next day was commenced with formal and almost ceremonial preparation. The father and daughter breakfasted together, with the knowledge that the discussion was coming. It did not give to either of them a good appetite, and very little was said at table.
“Will you come upstairs?” said Alice, when she perceived that her father had finished his tea.
“Perhaps that will be best,” said he. Then he followed her into the drawing-room in which the fire had just been lit.
“Alice,” said he, “I must speak to you about this engagement of yours.”
“Won’t you sit down, papa? It does look so dreadful, your standing up over one in that way.” He had placed himself on the rug with his back to the incipient fire, but now, at her request, he sat himself down opposite to her.
“I was greatly grieved when I heard of this at Vavasor.”
“I am sorry that you should be grieved, papa.”
“I was grieved. I must confess that I never could understand why you treated Mr Grey as you have done.”
“Oh, papa, that’s done and past. Pray let that be among the bygones.”
“Does he know yet of your engagement with your cousin?”
“He will know it by this time tomorrow.”
“Then I beg of you, as a great favour, to postpone your letter to him.” To this Alice made no answer. “I have not troubled you with many such requests, Alice. Will you tell me that this one shall be granted?”
“I think that I owe it to him as an imperative duty to let him know the truth.”
“But you may change your mind again.” Alice found that this was hard to bear and hard to answer; but there was a certain amount of truth in the grievous reproach conveyed in her father’s words, which made her bow her neck to it. “I have no right to say that it is impossible,” she replied, in words that were barely audible.
“No;—exactly so,” said her father. “And therefore it will be better that you should postpone any such communication.”
“For how long do you mean?”
“Till you and I shall have agreed together that he should be told.”
“No, papa; I will not consent to that. I consider myself bound to let him know the truth without delay. I have done him a great injury, and I must put an end to that as soon as possible.”
“You have done him an injury certainly, my dear;—a very great injury,” said Mr Vavasor, going away from his object about the proposed letter; “and I believe he will feel it as such to the last day of his life, if this goes on.”
“I hope not. I believe that it will not be so. I feel sure that it will not be so.”
“But of course what I am thinking of now is your welfare,—not his. When you simply told me that you intended to—.” Alice winced, for she feared to hear from her father that odious word which her grandfather had used to her; and indeed the word had been on her father’s lips, but he had refrained and spared her—”that you intended to break your engagement with Mr Grey,” he continued, “I said little or nothing to you. I would not ask you to marry any man, even though you had yourself promised to marry him. But when you tell me that you are engaged to your cousin George, the matter is very different. I do not think well of your cousin. Indeed I think anything but well of him. It is my duty to tell you that the world speaks very ill of him.” He paused, but Alice remained silent. “When you were about to travel with him,” he continued, “I ought perhaps to have told you the same. But I did not wish to pain you or his sister; and, moreover, I have heard worse of him since then,—much worse than I had heard before.”
“As you did not tell me before, I think you might spare me now,” said Alice.
“No, my dear; I cannot allow you to sacrifice yourself without telling you that you are doing so. If it were not for your money he would never think of marrying you.”
“Of that I am well aware,” said Alice. “He has told me so himself very plainly.”
“And yet you will marry him?”
“Certainly I will. It seems to me, papa, that there is a great deal of false feeling about this matter of money in marriage,—or rather, perhaps, a great deal of pretended feeling. Why should I be angry with a man for wishing to get that for which every man is struggling? At this point of George’s career the use of money is essential to him. He could not marry without it.”
“You had better then give him your money without yourself,” said her father, speaking in irony.
“That is just what I mean to do, papa,” said Alice.
“What!” said Mr Vavasor, jumping up from his seat. “You mean to give him your money before you marry him?”
“Certainly I do;—if he should want it;—or, I should rather say, as much as he may want of it.”
“Heavens and earth!” exclaimed Mr Vavasor. “Alice, you must be mad.”
“To part with my money to my friend?” said she. “It is a kind of madness of which I need not at any rate be ashamed.”
“Tell me this, Alice; has he got any of it as yet?”
“Not a shilling. Papa, pray do not look at me like that. If I had no thought of marrying him you would not call me mad because I lent to my cousin what money he might need.”
“I should only say that so much of your fortune was thrown away, and if it were not much that would be an end of it. I would sooner see you surrender to him the half of all you have, without any engagement to marry him, than know that he had received a shilling from you under such a promise.”
“You are prejudiced against him, sir.”
“Was it prejudice that made you reject him once before? Did you condemn him then through prejudice? Had you not ascertained that he was altogether unworthy of you?”
“We were both younger, then,” said Alice, speaking very softly, but very seriously. “We were both much younger then, and looked at life with other eyes than those which we now use. For myself I expected much then, which I now seem hardly to regard at all; and as for him, he was then attached to pleasures to
