Part 31 (2/2)
But he was able to perceive that Caroline was not only beautiful. She talked to him almost exclusively, for she had capriciously seated herself away from her lover, and next to her aunt. ”Adela,” she had whispered, going downstairs, ”I shall look to you to talk to George all the evening, for I mean to make a new conquest.”
Bertram was delighted. It was hardly in him to be jealous, even had there been a shadow of cause. As it was, his love was doing exactly that which he wished her to do. She was vindicating his choice to the man whose judgment on the matter was most vitally essential to him.
When the ladies left the dining-room, both Bertram and Harcourt heartily wished that Miss Baker had not been so scrupulously hospitable. They hardly knew what to do with Mr. Meek. Mr. Meek remarked that Miss Baker was a very nice person, that Miss Waddington was a charming person, that Miss Penelope Gauntlet was a very nice person indeed, and that Miss Adela was a very sweet person; and then it seemed that all conversation was at end. ”Eh! what! none especially; that is to say, the Middle Temple.” Such had been Harcourt's reply to Mr. Meek's inquiry as to what London congregation he frequented; and then the three gentlemen seemed to be much occupied with their wine and biscuits. This invitation to Mr. Meek had certainly been a mistake on Miss Baker's part.
But the misery did not last long. Of the first occasion on which Mr.
Meek's gla.s.s was seen to be well empty, George took advantage. ”If you don't take any more wine, Mr. Meek, we may as well go upstairs; eh, Harcourt?” and he looked suppliantly at his friend.
”Oh, I never take any more wine, you know. I'm an anchorite on such occasions as these.” And so they went into the drawing-room, long before Miss Baker had her coffee ready for them.
”You see a good deal of Arthur now, I suppose?” said Bertram, addressing Adela.
”Yes; that is, not a very great deal. He has been busy since he took up the parish. But I see Mary frequently.”
”Do you think Arthur likes it? He seemed to me to be hardly so much gratified as I should have thought he would have been. The living is a good one, and the marquis was certainly good-natured about it.”
”Oh, yes, he was,” said Adela.
”It will be a long time, I know, before I earn five hundred pounds a year. Do you know, he never wrote about it as though he thought he'd been lucky in getting it.”
”Didn't he?”
”Never; and I thought he was melancholy and out of spirits when I saw him the other day. He ought to marry; that's the fact. A young clergyman with a living should always get a wife.”
”You are like the fox that lost its tail,” said Adela, trying hard to show that she joined in the conversation without an effort.
”Ah! but the case is very different. There can be no doubt that Arthur ought to lose his tail. His position in the world is one which especially requires him to lose it.”
”He has his mother and sisters, you know.”
”Oh, mother and sisters! Mother and sisters are all very well, or not very well, as the case may be; but the vicar of a parish should be a married man. If you can't get a wife for him down there in Hamps.h.i.+re, I shall have him up to London, and look one out for him there. Pray take the matter in hand when you go home, Miss Gauntlet.”
Adela smiled, and did not blush; nor did she say that she quite agreed with him that the vicar of a parish should be a married man.
”Well, I shan't ask any questions,” said Bertram, as soon as he and Harcourt were in the street, ”or allow you to offer any opinion; because, as we have both agreed, you have not pluck enough to give it impartially.” Bertram as he said this could hardly preserve himself from a slight tone of triumph.
”She is simply the most most lovely woman that my eyes ever beheld,”
said Harcourt.
”Tus.h.!.+ can't you make it a little more out of the common way than that? But, Harcourt, without joke, you need not trouble yourself. I did want you to see her; but I don't care twopence as to your liking her. I shall think much more of your wife liking her--if you ever have a wife.”
”Bertram, upon my word, I never was less in a mood to joke.”
”That is saying very little, for you are always in a mood to joke.” Bertram understood it all; saw clearly what impression Miss Waddington had made, and for the moment was supremely happy.
”How ever you had the courage to propose yourself and your two hundred pounds a year to such a woman as that!”
”Ha! ha! ha! Why, Harcourt, you are not at all like yourself. If you admire her so much, I shall beg you not to come to Littlebath any more.”
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