’Not at all. And when we are settled down
in the real Darby-and-Joan way I shall hope to see
Mr Longstaff very often. I daresay he won’t
call me a pert poppet, and I shall not remind him of
the word. But I shall always think of it; and
remembering the way in which my character struck an
educated Englishman,—who was not altogether
ill-disposed towards me,—I may hope to improve
myself.’
‘I Have Never Loved You.’
Silverbridge had now been in town three or four weeks,
and Lady Mabel Grex had also been in London all that
time, and yet he had not seen her. She had told
him that she loved him and had asked him plainly to
make her his wife. He had told her he could not
do so,—that he was altogether resolved
to make another woman his wife. Then she had
rebuked him, and had demanded from him how he had
dared to treat her as he had done. His conscience
was clear. He had his own code or morals as to
such matters; and had, as he regarded it, kept within
the law. But she thought that she was badly treated,
and had declared that she was now left out in the
cold for ever through his treachery. Then her
last word had been almost the worst of all, ’Who
can tell what may come to pass?’—
showing too plainly that she would not even now give
up her hope. Before the month was up she wrote
to him as follows:
’Why do you not come and see me? Are friends
so plentiful with you that one so staunch as I may
be thrown over? But of course I know why you
do not come. Put all that aside,—and
come. I cannot hurt you. I have learned
to feel that certain things which the world regards
as too awful to be talked of,—except in
the way of scandal, may be discussed and then laid
aside just like other subjects. What though I
wear a wig or a wooden leg, I may still be fairly
comfortable among my companions unless I crucify myself
by trying to hide my misfortune. It is not the
presence of the skeleton that crushes us. Not
even that will hurt us much if we let him go about
the house as he lists. It is the everlasting
effort which the horror makes to peep out of his cupboard
that robs us of our ease. At any rate come and
see me.
’Of course I know that you are to be married
to Miss Boncassen. Who does not know it?
The trumpeters have been at work for the last week.
’Your very sincere Friend,
‘Mabel.’
He wished that she had not written. Of course
he must go to her. And though there was a word
or two in her letter which angered him, his feelings
towards her were kindly. Had not that American
angel flown across the Atlantic to his arms he could
have been well content to make her his wife.
But the interview at the present moment could hardly
be other than painful. She could, she said, talk
of her own misfortunes, but the subject would be very
painful to him. It was not to him a skeleton,
to be locked out of sight, but it had been a misfortune,
and the sooner that such misfortune could be forgotten
the better.
