Part 32 (2/2)
”You seem very miserable,” said he; and the man's voice was so changed that she started as if a stranger had come into the room. ”I think I can understand why--no, don't explain anything, Mrs. Lascelles, but listen to me--you are unhappy. To the best of my power I will help you.
Somebody that you--well--that you like very much is in difficulties. If I can extricate him, I will. You needn't hate everything or everybody any longer,” he added, with rather a sad smile; ”and you may believe that, though people do not put off their business nor their pleasure for them, they can sometimes sacrifice their interests to their friends.”
How n.o.ble he seemed standing there--so kind, so good, so utterly unselfish and true! How she loved him! She had long guessed it. She knew it too surely now. Yet she could not forbear taking the last arrow from her quiver, and sending it home to his honest, unsuspecting heart.
”It is very kind of you, Mr. Goldthred,” said she, ”to speak as you do, particularly as you always mean what you say; but, though I often fancied you liked her, I had no idea your attachment to Miss Hallaton was so strong as all that!”
He turned very pale, and stooped over the moulting bullfinch, without speaking; then raised his head, looking--as she had never seen him look before--resolved, even stern, thoughtful, saddened, yet not the least unkind; and the voice, that had trembled awhile ago, was firm and decided now.
”If you are joking, Mrs. Lascelles,” said he, ”the jest is unworthy of _you_, and unfair on _me_. If you really think what you say, it is time you were undeceived. Miss Hallaton is no more to me than a young lady in whom you take an interest. For her father I am prepared to make any sacrifice, because I think you--Mrs. Lascelles, will you forgive what I am going to say?”
”I don't know,” she answered, smiling very brightly, considering that the tears still glittered in her eyes. ”I might be more deeply offended than you suppose. What if you were going to say you think I am in love with Sir Henry Hallaton?”
”I think you _are_ in love with Sir Henry Hallaton,” he repeated very gravely. ”I think your happiness has long been dependent on his society.
I think you would marry him to-morrow if he asked you. I think he would ask you to-day if his position admitted of it. I do not live a great deal in the world, Mrs. Lascelles, and I dare say I am rather dull in a general way; but the stupidest people can see things that affect their interests or their happiness; and I have often watched every word and look of yours, when you thought perhaps I had no more perception, no more feeling, than that marble chimney-piece. Sometimes with a sore heart enough; but that is all over now! Ought I to have told you long ago, or ought I to have held my tongue for ever? I don't know; but I need not tell you now, that from the day Mr. Groves introduced me to you, at the Thames Regatta--I dare say you've forgotten all about it--I have admired you, and--and--cared for you more than anything in the world. You're too bright and too beautiful and too good for me, I know; but that don't prevent my wanting to see you happy, and happy you _shall_ be, Mrs. Lascelles, if everything I can do has the power to make you so!”
His voice may have failed him somewhat during this simple little declaration, but seemed steady enough when he finished; and it could not, therefore, have been from sympathy with his emotion that the tears were again rising fast to his listener's blue eyes.
”I remember it perfectly,” she sobbed. ”You were talking to a fat woman in a hideous yellow gown. Why do you say I don't?”
”Remember what?” he asked innocently, not being quite conversant with a manoeuvre much practised by ladies in difficulties, and similar to that resource which is termed in the prize-ring ”sparring for wind.”
”Why, the first time I met you,” she answered. ”You're not the only person who has a memory and feelings and all that. I know you must think me a brute, and so I am; but still, I'm not quite a woman of stone!”
”I have told you what I think of you,” said he very quietly. ”Now tell me what I can do for you, and _him_.”
”Do you mean,” she asked, peeping slyly out of her little useless handkerchief, ”that you would actually give me up to somebody else, and part with your _money_, which is always a criterion of sincerity, for such an object? Mr. Goldthred, is _that_ what you call love?”
”I only want you to be happy,” said he. ”I don't understand much about love and flirtation; and these things people make such a talk about. I want to see you happy. No, not that; for I should avoid seeing you, at least just at first; but I should like to _know_ you were happy, and that it was my doing.”
He turned, and leaned his elbows on the chimney-piece, not to look in the gla.s.s; for his face was buried in his hands, so that she had some difficulty in attracting his attention. It was not a romantic action; but she gave a gentle pull at his coat-tails.
”You _can_ make me happy,” she whispered, with a deep and very becoming blush. ”I don't think it will be at all inconvenient or unpleasant to you, only--only--you know I can't exactly suggest it first.”
He turned as if he was shot. With white face and parted lips, never man looked more astonished, while he gasped out,
”And you wouldn't marry Sir Henry Hallaton?”
She shook her head with a very bewitching smile.
”And you _would_ marry me?” he continued, hardly daring to believe it was not all a dream.
”You've never asked me,” was the reply; but he was on the sofa at her side by this time, whispering his answer so closely in her ear, that I doubt if either heard it, while both knew pretty well what it meant; and though their subsequent conversation was carried on in a strange mixture of broken sentences, irrational expressions, and idiotic dumb show, it took less than ten minutes to arrive at a definite conclusion, entailing on Goldthred the necessity of immediate correspondence with his nearest relatives, and a visit to Doctors' Commons at no far distant date.
But, happy as he felt, breathing elixir, treading upon air, while walking home to dress for dinner, he found time for the purchase of such a beautiful fan as can hardly be got for money, and sent it forthwith to Kate Cremorne, with the following line written in pencil on his card--_Il faut se faire valoir_.
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