Part 12 (1/2)
”Yes;--he will promise.”
”Did you ever know him to break his word?”
”I know nothing about him, my dear. How should I?”
”Do not pretend to be ignorant and meek, Violet. You do know him,--much better than most girls know the men they marry. You have known him, more or less intimately, all your life.”
”But am I bound to marry him because of that accident?”
”No; you are not bound to marry him,--unless you love him.”
”I do not love him,” said Violet, with slow, emphatic words, and a little forward motion of her face, as though she were specially eager to convince her friend that she was quite in earnest in what she said.
”I fancy, Violet, that you are nearer to loving him than any other man.”
”I am not at all near to loving any man. I doubt whether I ever shall be. It does not seem to me to be possible to myself to be what girls call in love. I can like a man. I do like, perhaps, half a dozen. I like them so much that if I go to a house or to a party it is quite a matter of importance to me whether this man or that will or will not be there. And then I suppose I flirt with them. At least Augusta tells me that my aunt says that I do. But as for caring about any one of them in the way of loving him,--wanting to marry him, and have him all to myself, and that sort of thing,--I don't know what it means.”
”But you intend to be married some day,” said Lady Laura.
”Certainly I do. And I don't intend to wait very much longer. I am heartily tired of Lady Baldock, and though I can generally escape among my friends, that is not sufficient. I am beginning to think that it would be pleasant to have a house of my own. A girl becomes such a Bohemian when she is always going about, and doesn't quite know where any of her things are.”
Then there was a silence between them for a few minutes. Violet Effingham was doubled up in a corner of a sofa, with her feet tucked under her, and her face reclining upon one of her shoulders. And as she talked she was playing with a little toy which was constructed to take various shapes as it was flung this way or that. A bystander looking at her would have thought that the toy was much more to her than the conversation. Lady Laura was sitting upright, in a common chair, at a table not far from her companion, and was manifestly devoting herself altogether to the subject that was being discussed between them. She had taken no lounging, easy att.i.tude, she had found no employment for her fingers, and she looked steadily at Violet as she talked,--whereas Violet was looking only at the little manikin which she tossed. And now Laura got up and came to the sofa, and sat close to her friend. Violet, though she somewhat moved one foot, so as to seem to make room for the other, still went on with her play.
”If you do marry, Violet, you must choose some one man out of the lot.”
”That's quite true, my dear, I certainly can't marry them all.”
”And how do you mean to make the choice?”
”I don't know. I suppose I shall toss up.”
”I wish you would be in earnest with me.”
”Well;--I will be in earnest. I shall take the first that comes after I have quite made up my mind. You'll think it very horrible, but that is really what I shall do. After all, a husband is very much like a house or a horse. You don't take your house because it's the best house in the world, but because just then you want a house. You go and see a house, and if it's very nasty you don't take it. But if you think it will suit pretty well, and if you are tired of looking about for houses, you do take it. That's the way one buys one's horses,--and one's husbands.”
”And you have not made up your mind yet?”
”Not quite. Lady Baldock was a little more decent than usual just before I left Baddingham. When I told her that I meant to have a pair of ponies, she merely threw up her hands and grunted. She didn't gnash her teeth, and curse and swear, and declare to me that I was a child of perdition.”
”What do you mean by cursing and swearing?”
”She told me once that if I bought a certain little dog, it would lead to my being everlastingly--you know what. She isn't so squeamish as I am, and said it out.”
”What did you do?”
”I bought the little dog, and it bit my aunt's heel. I was very sorry then, and gave the creature to Mary Rivers. He was such a beauty! I hope the perdition has gone with him, for I don't like Mary Rivers at all. I had to give the poor beasty to somebody, and Mary Rivers happened to be there. I told her that Puck was connected with Apollyon, but she didn't mind that. Puck was worth twenty guineas, and I daresay she has sold him.”
”Oswald may have an equal chance then among the other favourites?”
said Lady Laura, after another pause.
”There are no favourites, and I will not say that any man may have a chance. Why do you press me about your brother in this way?”