"Oh, mamma! how can you joke about such a thing!"

"I am not quite joking, my child. There is no knowing what altogether unsuitable things men will do!--Who can blame them when they see how women consent to many unsuitable things!"

"But, mamma, he is old enough to be my father!"

"Of course he is! Poor man! it would be a hard fate to have fallen in love with both mother and daughter in vain!"

"I won't go with him, mamma!"

"You had better go, my dear. You need not be much afraid. He is really a gentleman, however easily mistaken for something else. You must not forget how much we owe him for Mark!"

"Do you mean, mamma," said Hester, with a strange look out of her eyes, "that I ought to marry him if he asks me?" Hester was sometimes oddly stupid for a moment as to the intent of those she knew best.

Her mother laughed heartily.

"What a goose you are, my darling! Don't you know your mother from a miscreant yet?"

But in truth her mother so rarely jested that there was some excuse for her. Relieved from the pa.s.sing pang of a sudden dread, Hester went without more words and put on her bonnet to go with the cause of it. She did not like the things at all, for no one could be certain what absurd thing he might not do.

They set out together, but until they were some distance from the house walked in absolute silence, which seemed to Hester to bode no good. But how changed the poor man was, she thought. It would be pitiful to have to make him still more miserable! Steadily the major marched along, his stick under his arm like a sword, and his eyes looking straight before him.

"Cousin Hester," he said at length, "I am about to talk to you very strangely--to conduct myself indeed in a very peculiar manner. Can you imagine a man rendering himself intensely, unpardonably disagreeable, from the very best of motives?"

It was a speech very different from any to be expected of him. That he should behave oddly seemed natural--not that he should knowingly intend to do so!

"I think I could," answered Hester, wishing neither to lead him on nor to deter him: whatever he had to say, the sooner it was said the better!

"Tell me," he said suddenly after a pause just beginning to be awkward--then paused again. "--Let me ask you first," he resumed, "whether you are able to trust me a little. I am old enough to be your father--let me say your grandfather;--fancy I am your grandfather: in my soul I believe neither could wish you well more truly than myself. Tell me--trust me and tell me: what is there between you and Mr. Vavasor?"

Hester was silent. The silence would have lasted but a moment had Hester to ask herself, not what answer she should give to his question, but what answer there was to give to it. Whether bound, whether pleased to answer it or not, might have come presently, but it did not; every question has its answer, known or unknown: what was the answer to this one? Before she knew it, the major resumed.

"I know," he said, "ladies think such things are not to be talked about with gentlemen; but there are exceptions to every rule: David ate the show-bread because there was a good reason for breaking a good rule.--Are you engaged to Mr. Vavasor?"

"No," answered Hester promptly.

"What is it then? Are you going to be?"

"If I answered that in the affirmative," said Hester, "would it not be much the same as acknowledging myself already engaged?"

"No! no!" cried the major vehemently. "So long as your word is not pa.s.sed you remain free. The two are as far asunder as the pole from the equator. I thank G.o.d you are not engaged to him!"

"But why?" asked Hester, with a pang of something like dread. "Why should you be so anxious about it?"

"Has he never said he loved you?" asked the major eagerly.

"No," said Hester hurriedly. She felt instinctively it was best to answer directly where there was no reason for silence. What he might be wrong to ask she was not therefore wrong to answer. But her _No_ trembled a little, for the doubt came with it, whether though literally, it was strictly true. "We are friends," she added. "We trust each other a good deal."

"Trust him with nothing, least of all your heart, my dear," said the major earnestly. "Or if you must trust him, trust him with anything, with everything, except that. He is not worthy of you."

"Do you say so to flatter me or to disparage him?"

"Entirely to disparage him. I never flatter."

"You did not surely bring me out, major Marvel, to hear evil of one of my best friends?" said Hester, now angry.

"I certainly did--if the truth be evil--but only for your sake. The man I do not feel interest enough in to abuse even. He is a n.o.body."

"That only proves you do not know him: you would not speak so if you did," said Hester, widening the s.p.a.ce between her and the major, and ready to choke with what in utterance took such gentle form.

"I am confident I should have worse to say if I knew him better. It is you who do not know him. It astonishes me that sensible people like your father and mother should let a fellow like that come prowling after you!"

"Major Marvel, if you are going to abuse my father and mother as well as lord Gartley,--" cried Hester, but he interrupted her.

"Ah, there it is!" exclaimed he bitterly. "Lord Gartley!--I have no business to interfere--no more than your gardener or coachman! but to think of an angel like you in the arms of a----"

"Major Marvel!"

--"I beg ten thousand pardons, cousin Hester! but I am so d.a.m.nably in earnest I can't pick and choose my phrases. Believe me the man is not worthy of you."

"What have you got against him?--I do hate backbiting! As his friend I ask you what you have against him."

"That's the pity of it! I can't tell you anything very bad of him. But a man of whom no one has anything good to say--one of whom never a warm word is uttered--"

"I have called him my friend!" said Hester.

"That's the worst of it! If it were not for that he might go to the devil for me!--I daresay you think it a fine thing he should have stuck to business so long!

"He was put to that before there was much chance of his succeeding; his aunt would not have him on her hands consuming the money she meant for the earldom. His elder brother would have had it, but he killed himself before it fell due: there are things that must not be spoken of to young ladies. I don't say your _friend_ has disgraced himself; he has not: by George, it takes a good deal for that in his set! But not a soul out of his own family cares two-pence for him."

"There are some who are better liked everywhere than at home, and they're not the better sort," said Hester. "That goes for less than nothing. I know the part of him chance acquaintances cannot know. He does not bear his heart on his sleeve. I a.s.sure you, major Marvel, he is a man of uncommon gifts and--"

"Great attractions, no doubt--to me invisible," blurted the major.

Hester turned from him.

"I am going home," she said. "--Luncheon is at the usual hour."

"Just one word," cried he, hurrying after her. "I swear by the living G.o.d I have no purpose or hope in interfering but to save you from a miserable future. Promise me not to marry this man, and I will settle on you a thousand a year--safe. You shall have the princ.i.p.al down if you prefer."

Hester walked the faster.

"Hear me," he went on, in an agony of entreaty mingled with something like anger.

"I mean it," he continued. "Why should I not for Helen's child!"

He was a yard or two behind her. She turned on him with a glance of contempt. But the tears were in his eyes, and her heart smote her. He had abused her friend, but was plainly honest himself. Her countenance changed as she looked at him. He came up to her. She laid her hand on his arm, and said--

"Dear major Marvel, I will speak to you without anger. What would you think of one who took money to do the thing she ought to do? I will not ask you what you would think of one who took money to do the thing she ought not to do! I would not _promise_ not to marry a beggar from the street. It _might_ be disgraceful to marry the beggar; it _must_ be disgraceful to promise not!"