Part 7 (1/2)
There was a moment's silence. Then--
”Why?” he asked.
The simple monosyllabic query completely confused her. It was unexpected, and she was at her wit's end how to reply to it. Moreover, he kept his eyes so pertinaciously fixed upon her that she felt her blood rising to her cheeks and brow in a hot flush of--shame? Oh no!--not shame, but merely petulant vexation. The proper way for him to behave at this juncture, so she reflected, would be that he should take her tenderly in his arms and murmur, after the penny-dreadful style of elderly hero, ”My darling, my darling! Can you, so young and beautiful, really care for an old fogey like me?'” to which she would, of course, have replied in the same fas.h.i.+on, and with the most charming insincerity--”Dearest! Do not talk of age! You will never be old to my fond heart!” But to stand, as he was standing, like a rigid figure of bronze, with a hard pale face in which only the eyes seemed living, and to merely ask ”Why” she would rather marry him than any other man in the world, was absurd, to say the least of it, and indeed quite lacking in all delicacy of sentiment. She sought about in her mind for some way out of the difficulty and could find none. She grew more and more painfully crimson, and wished she could cry. A well worked-up pa.s.sion of tears would have come in very usefully just then, but somehow she could not turn the pa.s.sion on. And a horrid sense of incompetency and failure began to steal over her--an awful foreboding of defeat. What could she do to seize the slippery opportunity and grasp the doubtful prize? How could she land the big golden fish which she foolishly fancied she had at the end of her line? Never had she felt so helpless or so angry.
”Why?” he repeated--”Why would you marry me? Not for love certainly.
Even if you believed in love--which you say you do not,--you could not at your age love a man at mine. That would be impossible and unnatural.
I am old enough to be your grandfather. Think again, Lucy! Perhaps you spoke hastily--- out of girlish thoughtlessness--or out of kindness and a wish to please me,--but do not, in so serious a matter, consider me at all. Consider yourself. Consider your own nature and temperament--your own life--your own future--your own happiness. Would you, young as you are, with all the world before you--would you, if I asked you, deliberately and of your own free will, marry me?”
She drew a sharp breath, and hurriedly wondered what was best to do. He spoke so strangely!--he looked so oddly! But that might be because he was in love with her! Her lips parted,--she faced him straightly, lifting her head with a little air of something like defiance.
”I would!--of course I would!” she replied. ”Nothing could make me happier!”
He gave a kind of gesture with his hands as though he threw aside some cherished object.
”So vanishes my last illusion!” he said. ”Well! Let it go!”
She gazed at him stupidly. What did he mean? Why did he not now emulate the penny-dreadful heroes and say ”My darling!” Nothing seemed further from his thoughts. His eyes rested upon her with a coldness such as she had never seen in them before, and his features hardened.
”I should have known the modern world and modern education better,” he went on, speaking more to himself than to her. ”I have had experience enough. I should never have allowed myself to keep even the shred of a belief in woman's honesty!”
She started, and flamed into a heat of protest.
”Mr. Helmsley!”
He raised a deprecatory hand.
”Pardon me!” he said wearily--”I am an old man, accustomed to express myself bluntly. Even if I vex you, I fear I shall not know how to apologise. I had thought----”
He broke off, then with an effort resumed--
”I had thought, Lucy, that you were above all bribery and corruption.”
”Bribery?--Corruption?” she stammered, and in a tremor of excitement and perturbation her fan dropped from her hands to the floor. He stooped for it with the ease and grace of a far younger man, and returned it to her.
”Yes, bribery and corruption,” he continued quietly. ”The bribery of wealth--the corruption of position. These are the sole objects for which (if I asked you, which I have not done) you would marry me. For there is nothing else I have to offer you. I could not give you the sentiment or pa.s.sion of a husband (if husbands ever have sentiment or pa.s.sion nowadays), because all such feeling is dead in me. I could not be your 'friend' in marriage--because I should always remember that our matrimonial 'friends.h.i.+p' was merely one of cash supply and demand. You see I speak very plainly. I am not a polite person--not even a Conventional one. I am too old to tell lies. Lying is never a profitable business in youth--but in age it is pure waste of time and energy. With one foot in the grave it is as well to keep the other from slipping.”
He paused. She tried to say something, but could find no suitable words with which to answer him. He looked at her steadily, half expecting her to speak, and there was both pain and sorrow in the depths of his tired eyes.
”I need not prolong this conversation,” he said, after a minute's silence. ”For it must be as embarra.s.sing to you as it is to me. It is quite my own fault that I built too many hopes upon you, Lucy! I set you up on a pedestal and you have yourself stepped down from it--I have put you to the test, and you have failed. I daresay the failure is as much the concern of your parents and the way in which they have brought you up, as it is of any latent weakness in your own mind and character.
But,--if, when I suggested such an absurd and unnatural proposition as marriage between myself arid you, you had at once, like a true woman, gently and firmly repudiated the idea, then----”
”Then--what?” she faltered.
”Why, then I should have made you my sole heiress,” he said quietly.
Her eyes opened in blank wonderment and despair. Was it possible! Had she been so near her golden El Dorado only to see the s.h.i.+ning sh.o.r.es receding, and the glittering harbour closed! Oh, it was cruel! Horrible!
There was a convulsive catch in her throat which she managed to turn into the laugh hysterical.