Part 59 (1/2)

”Ridiculous rancor!” Wakem burst out. ”What do you mean? d.a.m.n it! is a man to be horsewhipped by a boor and love him for it? Besides, there's that cold, proud devil of a son, who said a word to me I shall not forget when we had the settling. He would be as pleasant a mark for a bullet as I know, if he were worth the expense.”

”I don't mean your resentment toward them,” said Philip, who had his reasons for some sympathy with this view of Tom, ”though a feeling of revenge is not worth much, that you should care to keep it. I mean your extending the enmity to a helpless girl, who has too much sense and goodness to share their narrow prejudices. _She_ has never entered into the family quarrels.”

”What does that signify? We don't ask what a woman does; we ask whom she belongs to. It's altogether a degrading thing to you, to think of marrying old Tulliver's daughter.”

For the first time in the dialogue, Philip lost some of his self-control, and colored with anger.

”Miss Tulliver,” he said, with bitter incisiveness, ”has the only grounds of rank that anything but vulgar folly can suppose to belong to the middle cla.s.s; she is thoroughly refined, and her friends, whatever else they may be, are respected for irreproachable honor and integrity. All St. Ogg's, I fancy, would p.r.o.nounce her to be more than my equal.”

Wakem darted a glance of fierce question at his son; but Philip was not looking at him, and with a certain penitent consciousness went on, in a few moments, as if in amplification of his last words,--

”Find a single person in St. Ogg's who will not tell you that a beautiful creature like her would be throwing herself away on a pitiable object like me.”

”Not she!” said Wakem, rising again, and forgetting everything else in a burst of resentful pride, half fatherly, half personal. ”It would be a deuced fine match for her. It's all stuff about an accidental deformity, when a girl's really attached to a man.”

”But girls are not apt to get attached under those circ.u.mstances,”

said Philip.

”Well, then,” said Wakem, rather brutally, trying to recover his previous position, ”if she doesn't care for you, you might have spared yourself the trouble of talking to me about her, and you might have spared me the trouble of refusing my consent to what was never likely to happen.”

Wakem strode to the door, and without looking round again, banged it after him.

Philip was not without confidence that his father would be ultimately wrought upon as he had expected, by what had pa.s.sed; but the scene had jarred upon his nerves, which were as sensitive as a woman's. He determined not to go down to dinner; he couldn't meet his father again that day. It was Wakem's habit, when he had no company at home, to go out in the evening, often as early as half-past seven; and as it was far on in the afternoon now, Philip locked up his room and went out for a long ramble, thinking he would not return until his father was out of the house again. He got into a boat, and went down the river to a favorite village, where he dined, and lingered till it was late enough for him to return. He had never had any sort of quarrel with his father before, and had a sickening fear that this contest, just begun, might go on for weeks; and what might not happen in that time?

He would not allow himself to define what that involuntary question meant. But if he could once be in the position of Maggie's accepted, acknowledged lover, there would be less room for vague dread. He went up to his painting-room again, and threw himself with a sense of fatigue into the armchair, looking round absently at the views of water and rock that were ranged around, till he fell into a doze, in which he fancied Maggie was slipping down a glistening, green, slimy channel of a waterfall, and he was looking on helpless, till he was awakened by what seemed a sudden, awful crash.

It was the opening of the door, and he could hardly have dozed more than a few moments, for there was no perceptible change in the evening light. It was his father who entered; and when Philip moved to vacate the chair for him, he said,--

”Sit still. I'd rather walk about.”

He stalked up and down the room once or twice, and then, standing opposite Philip with his hands thrust in his side pockets, he said, as if continuing a conversation that had not been broken off,--

”But this girl seems to have been fond of you, Phil, else she wouldn't have met you in that way.”

Philip's heart was beating rapidly, and a transient flush pa.s.sed over his face like a gleam. It was not quite easy to speak at once.

”She liked me at King's Lorton, when she was a little girl, because I used to sit with her brother a great deal when he had hurt his foot.

She had kept that in her memory, and thought of me as a friend of a long while ago. She didn't think of me as a lover when she met me.”

”Well, but you made love to her at last. What did she say then?” said Wakem, walking about again.

”She said she _did_ love me then.”

”Confound it, then; what else do you want? Is she a jilt?”

”She was very young then,” said Philip, hesitatingly. ”I'm afraid she hardly knew what she felt. I'm afraid our long separation, and the idea that events must always divide us, may have made a difference.”

”But she's in the town. I've seen her at church. Haven't you spoken to her since you came back?”

”Yes, at Mr. Deane's. But I couldn't renew my proposals to her on several grounds. One obstacle would be removed if you would give your consent,--if you would be willing to think of her as a daughter-in-law.”