Part 23 (2/2)
”Quite true, Stella; I told him to go on and prosper; and really I hope he has prospered.”
”Yes,” said Stella reflectively.
”Then, my dear love, am I to understand that you are engaged to him?”
”Engaged to him! Certainly not,” she answered.
”Then,” snapped out her justly indignant parent, ”how in the name of Heaven has he prospered?”
”By my refusing him, of course. We should never have suited each other at all; he would have been miserable if I had married him.”
Mr. Fregelius groaned in bitterness of spirit.
”Oh, Stella, Stella,” he cried, ”what a disappointment!”
”Why should you be disappointed, father dear?” she asked gently.
”Why? You stand there and ask why, when I hear that my daughter, who will scarcely have a sixpence--or at least very few of them--has refused a young man with between seventeen and eighteen thousand pounds a year--that's his exact income, for he told me himself, a most estimable churchman, who would have been a pillar of strength to me, a man whom I should have chosen out of ten thousand as a son-in-law----” and he ceased, overwhelmed.
”Father, I am sorry that you are sorry, but it is strange you should understand me so little after all these years, that you could for one moment think that I should marry Mr. Layard.”
”And why not, pray? Are you better born----”
”Yes,” interrupted Stella, whose one pride was that of her ancient lineage.
”I didn't mean that. I meant better bred and generally superior to him?
You talk as though you were of a different clay.”
”Perhaps the clay is the same,” said Stella, ”but the mind is not.”
”Oh, there it is again, spiritual and intellectual pride, which causes you to set yourself above your fellows, and in the end will be your ruin. It has made a lonely woman of you for years, and it will do worse than that. It will turn you into an old maid--if you live,” he added, as though shaken by some sudden memory.
”Perhaps,” said Stella, ”I am not frightened at the prospect. I daresay that I shall have a little money and at the worst I can always earn a living; my voice would help me to it, if nothing else does. Father, dear, you mustn't be vexed with me; and pray--pray do understand that no earthly thing would make me marry a man whom I dislike rather than otherwise; who, at least, is not a mate for me, merely because he could give me a fine house to live in, and treat me luxuriously. What would be the good of such things to me if I knew that I had tarnished myself and violated my instincts?”
”You talk like a book--you talk like a book,” muttered the old gentleman. ”But I know that the end of it will be wretchedness for everybody. People who go on as you do about instincts, and fine feelings, and all that stuff, are just the ones who get into some dreadful mess at last. I tell you that such ideas are some of the devil's best baits.”
Stella began to grow indignant.
”Do you think, father, that you ought to talk to me quite like that?”
she asked. ”Don't you know me well enough to be sure that I should never get into what you call a mess--at least, not in the way I suppose you mean? My heart and thought are my own, and I shall be prepared to render account of them; for the rest, you need not be afraid.”
”I didn't mean that--I didn't mean anything of the sort----”
”I am glad to hear it,” broke in Stella. ”It would scarcely have been kind, especially as I am no longer a child who needs to be warned against the dangers of the world.”
”What I did mean is that you are an enigma; that I am frightened about you; that you are no companion; because your thoughts--yes, and at times your face, too--seem unnatural, unearthly, and separate you from others, as they have separated you from this poor young man.”
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