Part 30 (1/2)

”Has he? Who, then, was taking your daughter to dinner-parties, to theatres--I don't know what?”

Lind dealt gently with this madness.

”Who told you?”

”I have eyes and ears.”

”Put them to a better use, Beratinsky.”

Then he left, and the hansom carried him along to Curzon Street. Natalie herself flew to the door when she heard the cab drive up: there she was to receive him, smiling a welcome, and so like her mother that he was almost startled. She caught his face in her two hands and kissed him.

”Ah, why did you not let me come to meet you at Liverpool?”

”There were too many with me, Natalie. I was busy. Now get Anneli to open my portmanteau, and you can find out for yourself all the things I have brought for you.”

”I do not care for them, papa; I like to have you yourself back.”

”I suppose you were rather dull, Natalushka, being all by yourself?”

”Sometimes. But I will tell you all that has happened when you are having breakfast.”

”I have had breakfast, child. Now I shall get through my letters, and you can tell me all that has happened afterward.”

This was equivalent to a dismissal; so Natalie went up-stairs, leaving her father to go into the small study, where lay another bundle of letters for him.

Almost the first that he opened was from George Brand; and to his amazement he found, not details about progress in the North, but a simple, straightforward, respectful demand to be permitted to claim the hand of Natalie in marriage. He did not conceal the fact that this proposal had already been made to Natalie herself; he ventured to hope that it was not distasteful to her; he would also hope that her father had no objections to urge. It was surely better that the future of a young girl in her position should be provided for. As regarded by himself, Mr. Lind's acquaintance with him was no doubt but recent and comparatively slight; but if he wished any further and natural inquiry into the character of the man to whom he was asked to intrust his daughter, Lord Evelyn might be consulted as his closest friend. And a speedy answer was requested.

This letter was, on the whole, rather a calm and business-like performance. Brand could appeal to Natalie, and that earnestly and honestly enough; he felt he could not bring himself to make any such appeal to her father. Indeed, any third person reading this letter would have taken it to be more of the nature of a formal demand, or something required by the conventionalities; a request the answer to which was not of tremendous importance, seeing that the two persons most interested had already come to an understanding.

But Mr. Lind did not look at it in that light at all. He was at first surprised; then vexed and impatient, rather than angry; then determined to put an end to this nonsense at once. If he had deemed the matter more serious, he would have sat down and considered it with his customary fore thought; but he was merely irritated.

”Beratinsky was not so mad as I took him to be, after all,” he said to himself. ”Fortunately, the affair has not gone too far.”

He carried the open letter up-stairs, and found Natalie in the drawing-room, dusting some pieces of Venetian gla.s.s.

”Natalie,” he said, with an abruptness that startled her, and in a tone of anger which was just a little bit affected--”Natalie, what is the meaning of this folly?”

She turned and regarded him. He held the open letter in his hand. She said, calmly,

”I do not understand you.”

This only vexed him the more.

”I ask you what you have been doing in my absence?” he said, angrily.

”What have you been doing to ent.i.tle any man to write me such a letter as this? His affection! your future!--has he not something else to think of? And you--you seem not to have been quite so dull when I was away, after all! Well, it is time to have an end of it. Whatever nonsense may have been going on, I hope you have both of you come to your senses. Let me hear no more of it!”

Now she saw clearly what the letter must contain--what had stirred her father to such an unusual exhibition of wrath. She was a little pale, but not afraid. There was no tremor in her voice as she spoke.

”I am sorry, papa, you should speak to me like that. I think you forget that I am no longer a child. I have done nothing that I am ashamed of; and if Mr. Brand has written to you, I am willing to share the responsibility of anything he says. You must remember, papa, that I am a woman, and that I ought to have a voice in anything that concerns my own happiness.”