Volume Ii Part 6 (1/2)
”We never met till yesterday,” said she, calmly.
”True; and if we part to-morrow, it will be forever. I feel too painfully,” added he, with more eagerness, ”how I compromise all that I value by an avowal abrupt and rash as this is; but I have had no choice.
I have been offered the command of a native force in India, and must give my answer at once. With hope--the very faintest, so that it be hope--I will refuse. Remember I want no pledge, no promise; all I entreat is that you will regard me as one who seeks to win your favor.
Let time do the rest.”
”I do not think I ought to do this--I do not know if you should ask it.”
”May I speak to your grandfather--may I tell him what I have told you--may I say, 'It is with Josephine's permission--'”
”I am called Miss Barrington, sir, by all but those of my own family.”
”Forgive me, I entreat you,” said he, with a deep humility in his tone.
”I had never so far forgotten myself if calm reason had not deserted me.
I will not transgress again.”
”This is the shortest way back to the cottage,” said she, turning into a narrow path in the wood.
”It does not lead to my hope,” said he, despondingly; and no more was uttered between them for some paces.
”Do not walk so very fast, Miss Barrington,” said he, in a tone which trembled slightly. ”In the few minutes--the seconds you could accord me--I might build the whole fortune of my life. I have already endangered my hopes by rashness; let me own that it is the fault I have struggled against in vain. This scar”--and he showed the deep mark of a sabre-wound on the temple--”was the price of one of my offendings; but it was light in suffering to what I am now enduring.”
”Can we not talk of what will exact no such sacrifice?” said she, calmly.
”Not now, not now!” said he, with emotion; ”if you pa.s.s that porch without giving me an answer, life has no longer a tie for me. You know that I ask for no pledge, no promise, merely time,--no more than time,--a few more of those moments of which you now would seem eager to deny me. Linger an instant here, I beseech you, and remember that what to _you_ may be a caprice may to _me_ be a destiny.”
”I will not hear more of this,” said she, half angrily. ”If it were not for my own foolish trustfulness, you never would have dared to address such words to one whom you met yesterday for the first time.”
”It is true your generous frankness, the nature they told me you inherited, gives me boldness, but it might teach you to have some pity for a disposition akin to it. One word,--only one word more.”
”Not one, sir! The lesson my frankness has taught me is, never to incur this peril again.”
”Do you part from me in anger?”
”Not with _you_; but I will not answer for myself if you press me further.”
”Even this much is better than despair,” said he, mournfully; and she pa.s.sed into the cottage, while he stood in the porch and bowed respectfully as she went by. ”Better than I looked for, better than I could have hoped,” muttered he to himself, as he strolled away and disappeared in the wood.
CHAPTER V. A CABINET COUNCIL
”What do you think of it, Dinah?” said Barrington, as they sat in conclave the next morning in her own sitting-room.
She laid down a letter she had just finished reading on the table, carefully folding it, like one trying to gain time before she spoke: ”He's a clever man, and writes well, Peter; there can be no second opinion upon that.”
”But his proposal, Dinah,--his proposal?”
”Pleases me less the more I think of it. There is great disparity of age,--a wide discrepancy in character. A certain gravity of demeanor would not be undesirable, perhaps, in a husband for Josephine, who has her moments of capricious fancy; but if I mistake not, this man's nature is stern and unbending.”
”There will be time enough to consider all that, Dinah. It is, in fact, to weigh well the chances of his fitness to secure her happiness that he pleads; he asks permission to make himself known to her, rather than to make his court.”
”I used to fancy that they meant the same thing,--I know that they did in my day, Peter,” said she, bridling; ”but come to the plain question before us. So far as I understand him, his position is this: 'If I satisfy you that my rank and fortune are satisfactory to you, have I your permission to come back here as your granddaughter's suitor?'”