"Dear madam," cried Miss Allonby, "I am overjoyed!" then kissed her
step-mother vigorously and left the room, casting in passage an arch glance
at Mr. Erwyn.
"O vulgarity!" said Lady Allonby, recovering her somewhat rumpled dignity,
"the sweet child is yet unpolished. But, I suppose, we may regard the
matter as settled?"
"Yes," said Mr. Erwyn, "I think, dear lady, we may with safety regard the
matter as settled."
"Dorothy is of an excitable nature," she observed, and seated herself upon
the divan; "and you, dear Mr. Erwyn, who know women so thoroughly, will
overlook the agitation of an artless girl placed in quite unaccustomed
circumstances. Nay, I myself was affected by my first declaration,"'
"Doubtless," said Mr. Erwyn, and sank beside her. "Lord Stephen was very
moving."
"I can assure you," said she, smiling, "that he was not the first."
"I' gad," said he, "I remember perfectly, in the old days, when you were
betrothed to that black-visaged young parson--"
"Well, I do not remember anything of the sort," Lady Allonby stated; and
she flushed.
"You wore a blue gown," he said.
"Indeed?" said she.
"And--"
"La, if I did," said Lady Allonby, "I have quite forgotten it, and it is
now your manifest duty to do likewise."
"Never in all these years," said Mr. Erwyn, sighing, "have I been able to
forget it."
"I was but a girl, and 'twas natural that at first I should be mistaken in
my fancies," Lady Allonby told him, precisely as she had told Simon Orts:
"and at all events, there is nothing less well-bred than a good memory. I
would decline to remain in the same room with one were it not that Dorothy
has deserted you in this strange fashion. Whither, pray, has she gone?"
Mr. Erwyn smiled. "Her tender heart," said Mr. Erwyn, "is affected by the
pathetic and moving spectacle of the poor hungry swans, pining for their
native land and made a raree-show for visitors in the Pantiles; and she has
gone to stay them with biscuits and to comfort them with cakes."
"Really!" said Lady Allonby.
"And," Mr. Erwyn continued, "to defend her from the possible ferocity
of the gold-fish, Captain Audaine had obligingly afforded service as an
escort."
"Oh," said Lady Allonby; then added, "in the circumstances she might
permissibly have broken the engagement."
"But there is no engagement," said Mr. Erwyn--"as yet."
"Indeed?" said she.
"Harkee," said he; "should he make a declaration this afternoon she will
refuse him."
"Why, but of course!" Lady Allonby marveled.
"And the eighth time," said he.
"Undoubtedly," said she; "but at whatever are you hinting?"
"Yet the ninth time--"
"Well, what is it, you grinning monster?"
Mr. Erwyn allowed himself a noiseless chuckle. "After the ninth time," Mr.
Erwyn declared, "there will be an engagement."
"Mr. Erwyn!" cried Lady Allonby, with widened eyes, "I had understood that
Dorothy looked favorably upon your suit."
"Anastasia!" cried he; and then his finger-tips lightly caressed his brow.
"'Tis the first I had heard of it," said Mr. Erwyn.
"Surely--" she began.
"Nay, but far more surely," said he, "in consideration of the fact that,
not a half-hour since, you deigned to promise me your hand in marriage--"
"O la now!" cried Lady Allonby; and, recovering herself, smiled
courteously. "'Tis the first I had heard of it," said she.
They stared at each other in wonderment. Then Lady Allonby burst into
laughter.
"D'ye mean--?" said she.
"Indeed," said Mr. Erwyn, "so unintentional was I of aspiring to Miss
Allonby's affections that all my soul was set upon possessing the heart and
person of a lady, in my humble opinion, far more desirable."
"I had not dreamed--" she commenced.
"Behold," said Mr. Erwyn, bitterly, "how rightly is my presumption
punished. For I, with a fop's audacity, had thought my love for you of
sufficient moment to have been long since observed; and, strong in my
conceit, had scorned a pleasing declaration made up of faint phrases and
whining ballad-endings. I spoke as my heart prompted me; but the heart has
proven a poor counsellor, dear lady, and now am I rewarded. For you had
not even known of my passion, and that which my presumption had taken for
a reciprocal tenderness proves in the ultimate but a kindly aspiration to
further my union with another."
"D'ye love me, toad?" said Lady Allonby, and very softly.
"Indeed," said Mr. Erwyn, "I have loved you all my life, first with a
boyish inclination that I scarce knew was love, and, after your marriage
with an honorable man had severed us, as I thought, irrevocably, with such
lore as an ingenuous person may bear a woman whom both circumstances and
the respect in which he holds her have placed beyond his reach,--a love
that might not be spoken, but of which I had considered you could never be
ignorant."
"Mr. Erwyn," said she, "at least I have not been ignorant--"
"They had each one of them some feature that reminded me of you. That was
the truth of it, a truth so patent that we will not discuss it. Instead,
dear madam, do you for the moment grant a losing gamester the right to rail
at adverse fate! for I shall trouble you no more. Since your widowhood I
have pursued you with attentions which, I now perceive, must at many times
have proven distasteful. But my adoration had blinded me; and I shall
trouble you no more. I have been too serious, I did not know that our
affair was but a comedy of the eternal duel between man and woman; nor am
I sorry, dear opponent, that you have conquered. For how valorously you
fought! Eh, let it be! for you have triumphed in this duel, O puissant
lady, and I yield the victor--a devoted and, it may be, a rather heavy
heart; and I shall trouble you no more."
"Ah, sir," said Lady Allonby, "you are aware that once--"
"Indeed," said Mr. Erwyn, "'twas the sand on which I builded. But I am
wiser now, and I perceive that the feeling you entertain toward me is but
the pallid shadow of a youthful inclination. I shall not presume upon it.
Oh, I am somewhat proud, dear Anastasia; I have freely given you my heart,
such as it is; and were you minded to accept it, even at the eleventh hour,
through friendship or through pity only, I would refuse. For my love of you
has been the one pure and quite unselfish, emotion of my life, and I may
not barter it for an affection of lesser magnitude either in kind or in
degree. And so, farewell!"
"Yet hold, dear sir--" said Lady Allonby. "Lord, but will you never let me
have the woman's privilege of talking!"
"Nay, but I am, as ever, at your service," said Mr. Erwyn, and he paused in
transit for the door.
"--since, as this betokens--"
"'Tis a tasteful handkerchief," said Mr. Erwyn--"but somewhat moist!"
"And--my eyes?"
"Red," said Mr. Erwyn.
"I have been weeping, toad, with my head on the pin-cushion, and the maid
trying to tipsify me with brandy."
"Why?" said Mr. Erwyn.
"I thought you were to marry Dorothy."
Mr. Erwyn resumed his seat. "You objected?" he said.
"I think, old monster," Lady Allonby replied, "that I would entertain the
same objection to seeing any woman thus sacrificed--"
"Well?" said Mr. Erwyn.
"--except--"
"Incomparable Anastasia!" said Mr. Erwyn.