Part 76 (2/2)

'Do you mean, you want to marry _that_ girl?' said Mr. Dallas, imprudently flaming out.

Pitt was at the moment engaged in mending up a precious old volume, which by reason of age and use had become dangerously dilapidated. He was manipulating skilfully, as one accustomed to the business, with awl and a large needle, surrounded by his glue-pot and bits of leather and paper. At the question he lifted up his head and looked at his father.

Mr. Dallas did not like the look; it was too keen and had too much recognition in it; he feared he had unwarily showed his play. But Pitt answered then quietly, going on with his work again.

'I said nothing of that, sir; I do not know anything about that. My old friends may be in distress; both or one of them; it is not at all unlikely, I think. If things had gone well with them, you would have been almost sure to hear of their whereabouts at least. I made a promise, at any rate, and I am bound to find them, one side or the other of the Atlantic.'

'Don Quixote!' muttered his father. 'Colonel Gainsborough, I have no doubt, has gone home to his people, whom he ought never to have left.'

'In that case I can certainly find them.'

Mr. Dallas seldom made the mistake of spoiling his cause with words; he let the matter drop, though his mouth was full of things he would have liked to speak.

So the time came for Pitt's departure, and he went; and the two women he left behind him hardly dared to look at each other; the one lest she should betray her sorrow, and the other lest she should seem to see it.

Betty honestly suffered. She had found Pitt's society delightful; it had all the urbanity without the emptiness of that she was accustomed to. Whether right or wrong, he was undoubtedly a person in earnest, who meant his life to be something more than a dream or a play, and who had higher ends in view than to understand dining, or even to be an acknowledged critic of light literature, or a leader of fas.h.i.+on. Higher ends even than to be at the head of the State or a leader of its armies. There was enough natural n.o.bleness in Betty to understand Pitt, at least in a degree, and to be mightily attracted by all this. And his temper was so fine, his manners so pleasant, his tender deference to his mother so beautiful. Ah, such a man's wife would be well sheltered from some of the harshest winds that blow in the face of human nature!

Even if he were a little fanatical, it was a fanaticism which Betty half hoped, half inconsistently feared, would fade away with time. He had stayed just long enough to kindle a tire in her heart, which now she could not with a blow or a breath extinguish; not long enough for the fire to catch any loose tinder lying about on the outskirts of his.

Pitt rode away heart-whole, she was obliged to confess to herself, so far, at least, as she was concerned; and Betty had nothing to do now but to feel how that fire bit her, and to stifle the smoke of it. Mrs.

Dallas was a woman and a mother, and she saw what Betty would not have had her see for any money.

'_I_ think Pitt was taken with her,' she said to her husband, as one seeks to strengthen a faint belief by putting it into words.

'He is taken with nothing but his own obstinacy!' growled Mr. Dallas.

'His obstinacy never troubled you,' said the mother. 'Pitt was always like that, but never for anything bad.'

'It's for something foolish, then; and that will do as well.'

'Did you sound him?'

'Yes!'

'And what did he say?'

'Said he must see Esther Gainsborough first, confound him!'

'Esther Gainsborough! But he tried and could not find them.'

'He will try on the other side now. He'll waste his time running all over England to discover the family place; and then he will know that there is more looking to be done in America.'

'And he talked of coming over next year! Husband, he must not come. We must go over there.'

'Next summer. Yes, that is the only thing to do.'

'And we will take Betty Frere along with us.'

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