Part 38 (2/2)
”Wait,” she said, with trembling lips; ”wait. Give me time--let me think. It _was_ sudden; I will be better in a moment.”
He sat down feeling uncommonly uncomfortable. He was a practical sort of young man, with, a man's strong dislike of scenes of all kinds, and this interview didn't begin as promisingly as he had hoped.
She remained pale and silent for upward of five very long minutes; only once her lips whispered, as if unconsciously:
”The time has come--the time has come.”
It was Sir Victor himself who broke the embarra.s.sing pause.
”Aunt Helena,” he said pettishly, for he was not accustomed to have his sovereign will disputed, ”I don't understand this, and you will pardon me if I say I don't like it. It must have entered your mind that sooner or later I would fall in love and marry a wife, like other men. That time has come, as you say yourself. There is nothing I can see to be shocked at.”
”But not so soon,” she answered brokenly. ”O Victor, not so soon.”
”I don't consider twenty-three years too soon. I am old-fas.h.i.+oned, very likely, but I do believe in the almost obsolete doctrine of early marriage. I love her with all my heart.” His kindling eyes and softened voice betrayed it. ”Thank Heaven she has accepted me. Without her my life would not be worth the having.”
”Who is she?” she asked, without looking up. ”Lady Gwendoline, of course.”
”Lady Gwendoline?” He smiled and lifted his eyebrows.
”No, my dear aunt; a very different person from Lady Gwendoline. Miss Darrell.”
She sat erect and gazed at him--stunned.
”Miss Darrell! Edith Darrell--the American girl, the--Victor, if this is a jest--”
”Lady Helena, am I likely to jest on such a subject? It is the truth.
This morning Miss Darrell--Edith--has made me the happiest man in England by promising to be my wife. Surely, aunt, you must have suspected--must have seen that I loved her.”
”I have seen nothing,” she answered blankly, looking straight before her--”nothing. I am only an old woman--I am growing blind and stupid, I suppose. I have seen nothing.”
There was a pause. At no time was Sir Victor Catheron a fluent or ready speaker--just at present, perhaps, it was natural he should be rather at a loss for words. And her ladys.h.i.+p's manner was the reverse of rea.s.suring.
”I have loved her from the first,” he said, breaking once more the silence--”from the very first night of the party, without knowing it.
In all the world, she is the only one I can ever marry. With her my life will be supremely happy, superbly blessed; without her--but no!
I do not choose to think what my life would be like without her. You, who have been as a mother to me all my life, will not mar my perfect happiness on this day of days by saying you object.”
”But I do object!” Lady Helena exclaimed, with sudden energy and anger.
”More--I absolutely refuse. I say again, you are too young to want to marry at all. Why, even your favorite Shakespeare says: 'A young man married, is a man that's marred.' When you are thirty it will be quite time enough to talk of this. Go abroad again--see the world--go to the East, as you have often talked of doing--to Africa--anywhere! No man knows himself or his own heart at the ridiculous age of twenty-three!”
Sir Victor Catheron smiled, a very quiet and terribly obstinate smile.
”My extreme youth, then, is your only objection?”
”No, it is not--I have a hundred objections--it is objectionable from every point. I object to _her_ most decidedly and absolutely. You shall not marry this American girl without family or station, and of whom you know absolutely nothing--with whom you have not been acquainted four weeks. Oh, it is absurd--it is ridiculous--it is the most preposterous folly I ever heard of in my life.”
His smile left his face--a frown came instead. His lips set, he looked at her with a face of invincible determination.
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