"It would have been a sorrow perhaps to him had he been able to know me," said she, taking the opportunity of rushing at her subject.

"Why so? Of all human beings he was the softest-hearted."

"Not softer-hearted than you, Charles. But soft hearts have to be hardened."

"What do you mean? Am I becoming obdurate?"

"I am, Charles," she said. "I have got something to say to you. What will your uncles and aunts and your mother's relations say of me when they see me at Monkhams?"

"They will swear to me that you are charming; and then,--when my back is turned,--they'll pick you to pieces a little among themselves. I believe that is the way of the world, and I don't suppose that we are to do better than others."

"And if you had married an English girl, a Lady Augusta Somebody,--would they pick her to pieces?"

"I guess they would, as you say."

"Just the same?"

"I don't think anybody escapes, as far as I can see. But that won't prevent their becoming your bosom friends in a few weeks time."

"No one will say that you have been wrong to marry an American girl?"

"Now, Carry, what is the meaning of all this?"

"Do you know any man in your position who ever did marry an American girl;--any man of your rank in England?" Mr. Glasc.o.c.k began to think of the case, and could not at the moment remember any instance.

"Charles, I do not think you ought to be the first."

"And yet somebody must be first, if the thing is ever to be done;--and I am too old to wait on the chance of being the second."

She felt that at the rate she was now progressing she would only run from one little suggestion to another, and that he, either wilfully or in sheer simplicity, would take such suggestions simply as jokes; and she was aware that she lacked the skill to bring the conversation round gradually to the point which she was bound to reach. She must make another dash, let it be ever so sudden. Her mode of doing so would be crude, ugly,--almost vulgar she feared; but she would attain her object and say what she had to say. When once she had warmed herself with the heat which argument would produce, then, she was pretty sure, she would find herself at least as strong as he. "I don't know that the thing ought to be done at all," she said. During the last moment or two he had put his arm round her waist; and she, not choosing to bid him desist from embracing her, but unwilling in her present mood to be embraced, got up and stood before him. "I have thought, and thought, and thought, and feel that it should not be done. In marriage, like should go to like." She despised herself for using Wallachia's words, but they fitted in so usefully, that she could not refrain from them. "I was wrong not to know it before, but it is better to know it now, than not to have known it till too late.

Everything that I hear and see tells me that it would be so. If you were simply an Englishman, I would go anywhere with you; but I am not fit to be the wife of an English lord. The time would come when I should be a disgrace to you, and then I should die."

"I think I should go near dying myself," said he, "if you were a disgrace to me." He had not risen from his chair, and sat calmly looking up into her face.

"We have made a mistake, and let us unmake it," she continued. "I will always be your friend. I will correspond with you. I will come and see your wife."

"That will be very kind!"

"Charles, if you laugh at me, I shall be angry with you. It is right that you should look to your future life, as it is right that I should do so also. Do you think that I am joking? Do you suppose that I do not mean it?"

"You have taken an extra dose this morning of Wallachia Petrie, and of course you mean it."

"If you think that I am speaking her mind and not my own, you do not know me."

"And what is it you propose?" he said, still keeping his seat and looking calmly up into her face.

"Simply that our engagement should be over."

"And why?"

"Because it is not a fitting one for you to have made. I did not understand it before, but now I do. It will not be good for you to marry an American girl. It will not add to your happiness, and may destroy it. I have learned, at last, to know how much higher is your position than mine."

"And I am to be supposed to know nothing about it?"

"Your fault is only this,--that you have been too generous. I can be generous also."

"Now, look here, Caroline, you must not be angry with me if on such a subject I speak plainly. You must not even be angry if I laugh a little."

"Pray do not laugh at me!--not now."

"I must a little, Carry. Why am I to be supposed to be so ignorant of what concerns my own happiness and my own duties? If you will not sit down, I will get up, and we will take a turn together." He rose from his seat, but they did not leave the covered terrace. They moved on to the extremity, and then he stood hemming her in against a marble table in the corner. "In making this rather wild proposition, have you considered me at all?"

"I have endeavoured to consider you, and you only."

"And how have you done it? By the aid of some misty, far-fetched ideas respecting English society, for which you have no basis except your own dreams,--and by the fantasies of a rabid enthusiast."

"She is not rabid," said Caroline earnestly; "other people think just the same."

"My dear, there is only one person whose thinking on this subject is of any avail, and I am that person. Of course, I can't drag you into church to be married, but practically you can not help yourself from being taken there now. As there need be no question about our marriage,--which is a thing as good as done--"

"It is not done at all," said Caroline.

"I feel quite satisfied you will not jilt me, and as I shall insist on having the ceremony performed, I choose to regard it as a certainty. Pa.s.sing that by, then, I will go on to the results. My uncles, and aunts, and cousins, and the people you talk of, were very reasonable folk when I last saw them, and quite sufficiently alive to the fact that they had to regard me as the head of their family. I do not doubt that we shall find them equally reasonable when we get home; but should they be changed, should there be any sign shewn that my choice of a wife had occasioned displeasure,--such displeasure would not affect you."

"But it would affect you."

"Not at all. In my own house I am master,--and I mean to continue to be so. You will be mistress there, and the only fear touching such a position is that it may be recognised by others too strongly. You have nothing to fear, Carry."

"It is of you I am thinking."

"Nor have I. What if some old women, or even some young women, should turn up their noses at the wife I have chosen, because she has not been chosen from among their own countrywomen, is that to be a cause of suffering to us? Can not we rise above that,--lasting as it would do for a few weeks, a month or two perhaps,--say a year,--till my Caroline shall have made herself known? I think that we are strong enough to live down a trouble so light." He had come close to her as he was speaking, and had again put his arm round her waist. She tried to escape from his embrace,--not with persistency, not with the strength which always suffices for a woman when the embrace is in truth a thing to be avoided, but clutching at his fingers with hers, pressing them rather than loosening their grasp. "No, Carry," he continued; "we have got to go through with it now, and we will try and make the best of it. You may trust me that we shall not find it difficult,--not, at least, on the ground of your present fears. I can bear a heavier burden than you will bring upon me."

"I know that I ought to prove to you that I am right," she said, still struggling with his hand.

"And I know that you can prove nothing of the kind. Dearest, it is fixed between us now, and do not let us be so silly as to raise imaginary difficulties. Of course you would have to marry me, even if there were cause for such fears. If there were any great cause, still the game would be worth the candle. There could be no going back, let the fear be what it might. But there need be no fear if you will only love me." She felt that he was altogether too strong for her,--that she had mistaken his character in supposing that she could be more firm than he. He was so strong that he treated her almost as a child;--and yet she loved him infinitely the better for so treating her. Of course, she knew now that her objection, whether true or unsubstantial, could not avail. As he stood with his arm round her, she was powerless to contradict him in anything. She had so far acknowledged this that she no longer struggled with him, but allowed her hand to remain quietly within his. If there was no going back from this bargain that had been made,--why, then, there was no need for combating. And when he stooped over and kissed her lips, she had not a word to say. "Be good to me," he said, "and tell me that I am right."

"You must be master, I suppose, whether you are right or wrong. A man always thinks himself ent.i.tled to his own way."

"Why, yes. When he has won the battle, he claims his captive. Now, the truth is this, I have won the battle, and your friend, Miss Petrie, has lost it. I hope she will understand that she has been beaten at last out of the field." As he said this, he heard a step behind them, and turning round saw Wallachia there almost before he could drop his arm.

"I am sorry that I have intruded on you," she said very grimly.

"Not in the least," said Mr. Glasc.o.c.k. "Caroline and I have had a little dispute, but we have settled it without coming to blows."

"I do not suppose that an English gentleman ever absolutely strikes a lady," said Wallachia Petrie.

"Not except on strong provocation," said Mr. Glasc.o.c.k. "In reference to wives, a stick is allowed as big as your thumb."

"I have heard that it is so by the laws of England," said Wallachia.