Part 12 (2/2)
”Exactly; and from its tone it would appear that she is in the lower strata of society,” Harrison remarked.
”Whoever she is I shall, I suppose, be required to offer her marriage, even if she's a hideous old hag! My father was certainly determined that I should be sufficiently punished for my refusal to comply with his desire,” George observed, smiling bitterly.
”Why regret the past?” Harrison asked slowly, referring again to the blue foolscap by the fitful light of the fire. ”The inquiry has, up to the present, resulted in the elucidation of only one definite fact; nevertheless, Rutter is certainly on the right scent, and as he is now extensively advertising in the princ.i.p.al papers throughout France, I hope to be able ere long to report something more satisfactory.”
”It will be no satisfaction whatever to me if she is found,” observed the young man, grimly.
”But it is imperative that the matter should be cleared up,” the solicitor protested. ”When we have discovered her you will, of course, be at liberty to offer her marriage, or not, just as you please.”
”It is a most remarkable phase of the affair that the only person acquainted with this mysterious woman was poor Nelly,” the young barrister exclaimed at last. ”You will remember that in the letter, with its slang of the slums, Liane's name was mentioned. Well, I have written asking her whether she is acquainted with any woman of the same name with which the curious letter is signed, but she has replied saying that neither herself nor her father ever knew any such person, and they had been quite at a loss to know how Nelly should have become acquainted with her. Here is her reply; read for yourself,” and from his pocket he took several letters, and selecting one, handed it to the keen-faced, grey-haired man, at the same time striking a vesta and lighting the lamp standing upon the table.
”You don't seem to mind other people reading your love-letters,” the old solicitor said, laughing and turning towards the light. ”When I was young I kept them tied up with pink tape in a box carefully locked.”
George smiled. ”The pink tape was owing to the legal instinct, I suppose,” he said. Then he added, with a slight touch of sorrow, ”There are not many secrets in Liane's letters.”
The shrewd old man detected disappointment in his voice, and after glancing at the letter, looked up at him again, saying, ”The course of true love is not running smooth, eh? This lady is in Nice, I see.”
”Yes, Harrison,” he answered gravely, leaning against the table with head slightly bent. ”We are parted, and I fear that, after all, I have acted foolishly.”
”You will, no doubt, remember my advice on the day of your father's death.”
”I do,” George answered, huskily. ”At that time I fondly believed she loved me, and was prepared to sacrifice everything in order that she should be mine. But now--”
”Well?”
”Her letters have grown colder, and I have a distinct and painful belief that she loves me no longer, that she has, amid the mad whirl of gaiety on the Riviera, met some man who has the means to provide her with the pleasures to which she has been accustomed, and upon whom she looks with favour. Her letters now are little more than the formal correspondence of a friend. She has grown tired of waiting.”
”And are you surprised?” Harrison asked.
”I ought not to be, I suppose,” he said gloomily. ”I can never hope to marry her.”
”Why despair?” the old solicitor exclaimed kindly. ”You have youth, talent, and many influential friends, therefore there is no reason why your success at the Bar should not be as great as other men's.”
”Or as small as most men's,” he laughed bitterly. ”No, Harrison, without good spirits it is impossible for one to do one's best. Those I don't possess just now.”
”Well, if, because you are parted a few months, the lady pleases to forsake you, as you suspect, then all I can say is that you are very fortunate in becoming aware of the truth ere it is too late,” the elder man argued.
”But I love her,” he blurted forth. ”I can't help it.”
”Then, under the circ.u.mstances, I would, if I were you, stick to my profession and try and forget all that's past. Bitter memories shorten life and do n.o.body any good.”
”Ah! I only wish I could get rid of all thought of the past,” he sighed, gazing fixedly into the fire. ”You are my friend and adviser, Harrison, or I should not have spoken thus to you.”
The old man, with his blue foolscap still in his thin, bony hand, paused, regarded his client's son with a look of sympathy for a few moments, and sighed.
”Your case,” he said at last, ”is only one of many thousands. All of us, in whatever station, have our little romances in life. We have at some time or another adored a woman who, after the first few months, has cast us aside for a newer and perhaps richer lover. There are few among us who cannot remember a sweet face of long ago, a voice that thrilled us, a soft, caressing hand that was smooth as satin to our lips. We sigh when we recollect those long-past days, and wonder where she is, who she married, and whether, in her little debauches of melancholy, she ever recollects the man who once vowed he would love her his whole life through. Years have gone since then, yet her memory clings to us as vividly as if she were still a reality in our lives. We still love her and revere her, even though she cast us aside, even though we are not certain whether she still exists. The reason of all this is because when we are young we are more impressionable than when we are older, with wider and more mature experience of the world. The woman we at twenty thought adorable we should pa.s.s by unnoticed if we were forty.
Thus it is that almost all men cherish in their hearts a secret affection for some woman who has long ago gone out of their lives, pa.s.sed on, and forgotten them.”
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