Part 88 (2/2)
”No; because you are mad on this one matter.”
”You wish to release me from my promise?”
”I do. For your own good.”
”Then I will not be released. Because freedom would not lead to the desired result.”
”It would. It must. It is useless our going on so. I can never marry.
You see yourself I cannot. If you were rich, or if I were rich, why, then----”
”If you were I would not marry you, in all probability.”
”And why? Should I not be the same Molly then?” With a wan little smile. ”Well, if you were rich I would marry you gladly, because I know your love for me is so great you would not feel my dear ones a burden.
But as it is--yes--yes--we must part.”
”You can speak of it with admirable coolness,” says he, rather savagely. ”After all, at the best of times your love for me was lukewarm.”
”Was it?” she says, and turns away from him hurt and offended.
”Is my love the thing of an hour,” he goes on, angry with her and with himself in that he has displeased her, ”that you should talk of the good to be derived from the sundering of our engagement? I wish to know what it is you mean. Do you want to leave yourself free to marry a richer man?”
”How you misjudge me?” she says, shrinking as if from a blow. ”I shall never marry. All I want to do is to leave you free to”--with a sob--”to--choose whom you may.”
”Very good. If it pleases you to think I am free, as you call it, be it so. Our engagement is at an end. I may marry my mother's cook to-morrow morning, if it so pleases me, without a dishonorable feeling. Is that what you want? Are you satisfied now?”
”Yes.” But she is crying bitterly as she says it.
”And do you think, my sweet,” whispers he, folding her in his arms, ”that all this nonsense can take your image from my heart, or blot out the remembrance of all your gentle ways? For my part, I doubt it. Come, why don't you smile? You have everything your own way now; you should, therefore, be in exuberant spirits. You may be on the lookout for an elderly merchant prince; I for the dusky heiress of a Southern planter.
But I warn you, Molly, you shan't insist upon my marrying her, unless I like her better than you.”
”You accept the words, but not the spirit, of my proposition,” she says, sadly.
”Because it is a spiritless proposition altogether, without grace or meaning. Come, now, don't martyr yourself any more. I am free, and you are free, and we can go on loving each other all the same. It isn't half a bad arrangement, and so soothing to the conscience! I always had a remorseful feeling that I was keeping you from wedding with a duke, or a city magnate, or an archbishop. In the meantime I suppose I may be allowed to visit your Highness (in antic.i.p.ation) daily, as usual?”
”I suppose so.” With hesitation.
”I wonder you didn't say no, you hard-hearted child. Not that it would have made the slightest difference, as I should have come whether you liked it or not. And now come out--do; the sun is s.h.i.+ning, and will melt away this severe attack of the blues. Let us go into the Park and watch for our future prey,--you for your palsied millionaire, I for my swarthy West Indian.”
CHAPTER x.x.xVI.
”Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud.”
--_Idylls of the King._
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