"Well"—nervously—"I am sure mamma and papa thought so, and so did I."
"What an absurd mistake! Ten thousand Doras would not make one Phyllis. Do you know, ever since that first day I saw you in the wood I loved you? Do you remember it?"
"Yes," I say, blushing furiously. "I was hanging from the nut tree and nearly went mad with shame and rage when I found I could not escape. It puzzles me to think what you could have seen to admire about me that day, unless my boots." I laugh rather hysterically.
"Nevertheless I did love you then, and have gone on nursing the feeling ever since, until I can keep it to myself no longer. But you are silent, Phyllis. Why do you not speak? I will not remember what you said just now; I will not take a refusal from you. Darling, darling, surely you love me, if only a little?"
"No, I do not love you," I answer, with downcast lids and flaming cheeks.
Silence falls upon my cruel words. His hand-clasp loosens, but still he does not let me altogether go; and, glancing up timidly, I see a face like and yet unlike the face I know—a face that is still and white, with lips that tremble slightly beneath the heavy fair mustache. A world of disappointed anguish darkens his blue eyes.
Seeing all this, and knowing myself its cause, my heart is touched and a keen pang darts through my breast. I press his hands with reassuring force as I go on hastily:—
"But I like you, you will understand. I may not love you, but I like you very much indeed—better than any other man I ever met, except Roland and Billy, and he is only a boy." This is not a very clear or logical speech, but it does just as well: it brings the blood back to his face, and a smile to his lips, the light and fire to his eyes.
"Are you sure of that?" he asks, eagerly. "Are you certain, Phyllis?"
"Quite sure. But then I have never seen any men except Mr. Mangan, you know, and the curate, and Bobby De Vere, and—and one or two others."
"And these one or two others,"—jealously—"have I nothing to fear from them? Have you given them none of your thoughts?"
"Not one," return I, smiling up at him. The smile does more than I intend.
"Then you will marry me, Phyllis?" cries he, with renewed hope. "If you like me as you say, I will make you love me when you are once my own. No man could love as I do without creating some answering affection. Phyllis," he goes on, passionately, "look at me and say you believe all this. Oh, my life, my darling, how I have longed for you! How I have watched the hours that would bring me to your side! How I have hated the evenings that parted you from me! Say one little kind word to me to make me happy."
His tone is so full of hope and joy that almost I feel myself drifting with the current of his passion. But Dora's face rising before me checks the coming words. I draw back.
"Phyllis, put me out of pain," he says, entreatingly. I begin to find the situation trying, being a mere novice in the art of receiving and refusing proposals with propriety.
"I—I don't think I want to get married yet," I say, at length, with nervous gentleness. I am very fearful of hurting him again. "At home, when I ask to go anywhere, they tell me I am still a child, and you are much older than me. I don't mean that you are old," I add anxiously, "only a good deal older than I am; and perhaps when it was too late you would repent the step you had taken and wish you had chosen a wife older and wiser."
I stop, amazed at my own eloquence and rather proud of myself. Never before have I made so long and so connected a speech. Really the "older and wiser" could scarcely have done better. The marrying in haste and repenting at leisure allusion appears to me very neat, and ought to be effective.
All is going on very well indeed, and I feel I could continue with dignity to the end, but that just at this moment I become conscious I am going to sneeze. Oh, horrible, unromantic thought! Will nothing put it back for ten minutes—for even five? I feel myself turning crimson, and certain admonitory twitchings in my nose warn me the catastrophe is close at hand.
"Of course," says Mr. Carrington, in a low tone, "I know you are very young" (it is coming) "only seventeen. And, and"—(surely coming)—"I suppose twenty eight appears quite old to you." (In another instant I shall be disgraced forever.) "I look even older than I am. But good gracious Phyllis, is anything the matter with you?"
"Nothing, nothing," I murmur, with a last frantic effort at pride and dignity, "only a—a—snee—eeze—atchu—atchu—atchu!"
There is a most awful pause, and then Mr. Carrington, after a vain endeavor to suppress it, bursts into an unrestrained fit of laughter, in which without hesitation I join him. Indeed, now the crisis is over and my difficult and new-born dignity is a thing of the past, I feel much more comfortable and pleasanter in every way.
"But, Phyllis, all this time you are keeping me in suspense," says Mr. Carrington, presently, in an anxious tone: "and I will not leave you again without a decided answer. The uncertainty kills me. Darling, I feel glad and thankful when I remember how happy I can make your life, if you will only let me. You shall never have a wish ungratified that is in my power to grant. Strangemore shall be yours, and you shall make what alterations there you choose. You shall have your own rooms, and furnish them as your own taste directs. You shall reign there as the very sweetest queen that ever came within its walls."
He has passed his arm lightly round my waist, and is keenly noting the effect of his words.
"I remember the other day you told me how you longed to visit foreign lands. I will take you abroad, and you shall stay there as long as you wish—until you have seen everything your fancy has pictured to you. You will like all this, Phyllis; it pleases you."
There is no use in denying it. All this does please me. Nay, more; it intoxicates me. I am heart-whole, and can therefore freely yield myself up to the enjoyment of the visions he has conjured up before me. I feel I am giving in swiftly and surely. My refusing to marry him will not make him a whit more anxious to marry Dora; and instinct tells me now she is utterly unsuited to him. Still I am reluctant.
"Would you let me have Billy and mamma and Dora with me very often?" I ask faintly.
His arm round me tightens suddenly.
"As often as ever you wish," he says, with strange calmness. "I tell you you shall be my queen at Strangemore, and your wishes shall be law."
"And"—here I blush crimson, and my voice sinks to a whisper—"there is something else I want very, very much. Will you do it for me?"
"I will. Tell me what it is."
His tone is so quiet, so kind, I am encouraged; yet I know by the trembling of the hand that holds mine that the quiet is enforced.
"Will you send Billy to Eton for me?" I say, my voice shaking terribly. "I know it is a very great thing to ask, but he so longs to go."
"I will do better than that," he answers softly, drawing me closer to him as he sees how soon I shall be his by my own consent. "I will settle on you any money you wish, and you shall send Billy to Eton, and afterwards to Oxford or Cambridge."
This assurance, given at any other time, would have driven me half mad with delight. Now, though my heart feels a strong throb of pleasure, it is largely mingled with what I know is pain. Am I selling myself?
Some finer instinct within me whispers to me to pause before giving myself irrevocably to a man whom I certainly do not love as a woman should love the one with whom she elects to buffet all the storms and trials of life. A horrible thought comes to me and grows on my lips. I feel I must give it utterance.
"Suppose," I say, suddenly, "suppose—afterwards—when I have married you, I see some one to love with all my heart and mind: what then?"
He shivers. He draws me passionately, almost fiercely to him, as though defying my miserable words to come true.