Clara was aware that the tell-tale colour in her face
at once took from her the possibility of even pretending
that the allegation was untrue, and that in any answer
she might give she must acknowledge the fact.
’I do not think,’ she said, ’that
it is considered fair to gentlemen to tell such stories
as that.’
’Then I can only say that the young ladies I
have known are generally very unfair.’
‘But who told you?’
’Who told me? My maid. Of course she
got it from yours. Those things are always known.’
‘Poor Will!’
’Poor Will, indeed. He is coming here again,
I hear, almost immediately, and it needn’t be
“poor Will” unless you like it. But
as for me, I am not going to be an advocate in his
favour. I tell you fairly that I did not like
what little I saw of poor Will.’
‘I like him of all things.’
’You should teach him to be a little more courteous
in his demeanour to ladies; that is all. I will
tell you something else, too, about poor Will but
not now. Some other day I will tell you something
of your Cousin Will.’
Clara did not care to ask any questions as to this
something that was to be told, and therefore took
her leave and went away.
MR WILLIAM BELTON TAKES A WALK IN THE COUNTRY
Clara Amedroz had made one great mistake about her
cousin, Will Belton, when she came to the conclusion
that she might accept his proffered friendship without
any apprehension that the friend would become a lover;
and she made another, equally great, when she convinced
herself that his love had been as short-lived as it
had been eager. Throughout his journey back to
Plaistow, he bad thought of nothing else but his love,
and had resolved to persevere, telling himself sometimes
that he might perhaps be successful, and feeling sure
at other times that he would encounter renewed sorrow
and permanent disappointment but equally resolved
in either mood that he would persevere. Not to
persevere in pursuit of any desired object let the
object be what it might was, to his thinking, unmanly,
weak, and destructive of self-respect. He would
sometimes say of himself, joking with other men, that
if he did not succeed in this or that thing, he could
never speak to himself again. To no man did he
talk of his love in such a strain as this; but there
was a woman to whom he spoke of it; and though he could
not joke on such a matter, the purport of what he said
showed the same feeling. To be finally rejected,
and to put up with such rejection, would make him
almost contemptible in his own eyes.
