Part 35 (2/2)
”Cosy, eh?” he said, as he opened the door, and showed me a big apartment crowded with books of every shape and size, and heavily, and at the same time, handsomely furnished. ”Not bad for a city man's office, eh?” he continued, ”all the books are amusing; you might like to dip into 'em by-and-by, nothing deep or dull, or stodgy here, all light, frothy, and merry. Nothing improving, all entertaining. That is how my father made his fortune; and that is how I, Albert the second, as the mater calls me, intend to go on adding to my fortune. It is on light, frothy, palatable morsels that I and my wife will live in the future, eh, eh? You're pleased with the look of the place, ain't you.
Now then, sit right down here facing the light, so that I can have a good view of you. You're so young; you have not a wrinkle on you. It's the first sign of age coming on when a girl wishes to sit with her back to the light, but you are young, and you can stand the full glare. Here, you take the office chair. Isn't it comfortable? That's where I have sat for hours and hours, and days and days; and where my father sat before me. How well you'd look interviewing authors and artists when they come here with their ma.n.u.scripts. But there! I expect you'd be a great deal too kind to them. A lot of rubbish you would buy for the firm of Fanning & Co., wouldn't you now, eh? Ah, it's you that has got a tender little heart, and Albert Fanning has been one of the first to find it out.”
I could not interrupt this rapid flow of words, and sat in the chair indicated, feeling almost stunned. At last he stopped, and gazing at me, said--
”Well, and how _is_ Miss Westenra Wickham, and what has brought her to visit her humble servant? Out with it now, the truth, please.”
Still I could find no words. At last, however, I said almost shyly--
”You have been kind, more than kind, but I came here to tell you, you must not do it.”
”Now that's a pretty sort of thing to bring you here,” said Mr.
Fanning. ”Upon my soul, that's a queer errand. I have been kind, forsooth! and I am not to be kind in the future. And pray why should I turn into an evil, cruel sort of man at your suggestion, Miss Wickham?
Why should I, eh? Am I to spoil my fine character because you, a little slip of a girl, wish it so?”
”You must listen to me,” I said; ”you do not take me seriously, but you must. This is no laughing matter.”
”Oh, I am to talk sense, am I? What a little chit it is! but it is a dear little thing in its way, although saucy. It's trying to come round me and to teach me. Well, well, I don't mind owning that you can turn me with a twist of your little finger wherever you please. You have the most bewitching way with you I ever saw with any girl. It has bowled Albert Fanning over, that it has. Now, then, what have you really come for?”
”You paid the bill of Pattens the butcher either this morning or last night, why did you do it?”
Mr. Fanning had the grace to turn red when I said this. He gave me even for a moment an uncomfortable glance, then said loudly--
”But you didn't surely want that fellow Robert to stay on?”
”That is quite true,” I replied, ”but I still less want you, Mr.
Fanning, to pay our debts. You did very wrong to take such a liberty without my permission, very, very wrong.”
”To tell you the honest truth, I never wished you to know about it,”
said Mr. Fanning. ”Who blurted it out?”
”Jane Mullins, of course, told me.”
”Ah, I mentioned to the mater that it would be very silly to confide in that woman, and now the little mater has done no end of mischief.
She has set your back up and--but there, you were bound to know of it sooner or later. Of course the butcher's is not the only bill I must pay, and you were bound to know, of course. I don't really mind that you do know. It's a great relief to you, ain't it now?”
”It is not a great relief, and what is more I cannot allow it.”
”You cannot allow it?”
”No.”
Mr. Fanning now pulled his chair up so close to mine that his knees nearly touched me. I drew back.
”You needn't be afraid that I'll come closer,” he said almost sulkily, ”you know quite well what I feel about you, Miss Wickham, for I have said it already. I may have a few more words to deliver on that point by-and-by, but now what I want to say is this, that I won't force any one to come to me except with a free heart. n.o.body, not even you--not even _you_--although, G.o.d knows, you are like no one else on earth, shall come to me except willingly. I never met any one like you before, so dainty, so fair so pretty--oh, so very pretty, and such a sweet girl and, upon my word, you can make just anything of me. But there, the time for love-making has not yet come, and you have something ugly to say in the back of your head, I see the thought s.h.i.+ning out of your eyes. Oh, however hard you may feel, and however much pain you mean to give me, you cannot make those eyes of yours look ugly and forbidding. Now I am prepared to listen.”
He folded his arms across his chest and looked full at me. He was in such great and desperate earnest that he was not quite so repellant as usual. I could not but respect him, and I found it no longer difficult to speak freely to him.
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