Part 27 (1/2)
”Not unless they be so uttered as to force a belief. I do love you. I know no other reason but that why you should be my wife. I have no other excuse to offer for coming to you again. You are the one thing in the world that to me has any charm. Can you be surprised that I should be persistent in asking for it?” He was looking at her still with the same gaze, and there seemed to be a power in his eye from which she could not escape. He was still standing with his right hand out, as though expecting, or at least hoping, that her hand might be put into his.
”How am I to answer you?” she said.
”With your love, if you can give it to me. Do you remember how you swore once that you would love me for ever and always?”
”You should not remind me of that. I was a child then,--a naughty child,” she added, smiling; ”and was put to bed for what I did on that day.”
”Be a child still.”
”Ah, if we but could!”
”And have you no other answer to make me?”
”Of course I must answer you. You are ent.i.tled to an answer. Lord Chiltern, I am sorry that I cannot give you the love for which you ask.”
”Never?”
”Never.”
”Is it myself personally, or what you have heard of me, that is so hateful to you?”
”Nothing is hateful to me. I have never spoken of hate. I shall always feel the strongest regard for my old friend and playfellow.
But there are many things which a woman is bound to consider before she allows herself so to love a man that she can consent to become his wife.”
”Allow herself! Then it is a matter entirely of calculation.”
”I suppose there should be some thought in it, Lord Chiltern.”
There was now a pause, and the man's hand was at last allowed to drop, as there came no response to the proffered grasp. He walked once or twice across the room before he spoke again, and then he stopped himself closely opposite to her.
”I shall never try again,” he said.
”It will be better so,” she replied.
”There is something to me unmanly in a man's persecuting a girl. Just tell Laura, will you, that it is all over; and she may as well tell my father. Good-bye.”
She then tendered her hand to him, but he did not take it,--probably did not see it, and at once left the room and the house.
”And yet I believe you love him,” Lady Laura said to her friend in her anger, when they discussed the matter immediately on Lord Chiltern's departure.
”You have no right to say that, Laura.”
”I have a right to my belief, and I do believe it. I think you love him, and that you lack the courage to risk yourself in trying to save him.”
”Is a woman bound to marry a man if she love him?”
”Yes, she is,” replied Lady Laura impetuously, without thinking of what she was saying; ”that is, if she be convinced that she also is loved.”
”Whatever be the man's character;--whatever be the circ.u.mstances?