"She never gave me that impression, anyhow," said the young man.
"It was neither her duty to give nor yours to receive that impression,"
said Mr. Pope.
Again Mr. Trafford was at a loss.
"Have you come here, sir, merely to bandy words?" asked Mr. Pope,
drumming with ten fingers on the table.
Mr. Trafford thrust his hands into his pockets and assumed a fictitious
pose of ease. He had never found any one in his life before quite so
provocative of colloquialism as Mr. Pope.
"Look here, sir, this is all very well," he began, "but why can't I fall
in love with your daughter? I'm a Doctor of Science and all that sort of
thing. I've a perfectly decent outlook. My father was rather a swell in
his science. I'm an entirely decent and respectable person."
"I beg to differ," said Mr. Pope.
"But I am."
"Again," said Mr. Pope, with great patience, and a slight forward bowing
of the head, "I beg to differ."
"Well--differ. But all the same----"
He paused and began again, and for a time they argued to no purpose.
They generalized about the position of an engaged girl and the rights
and privileges of a father. Then Mr. Pope, "to cut all this short," told
him frankly he wasn't wanted, his daughter did not want him, nobody
wanted him; he was an invader, he had to be got rid of--"if possible by
peaceful means." Trafford disputed these propositions, and asked to see
Marjorie. Mr. Pope had been leading up to this, and at once closed with
that request.
"She is as anxious as any one to end this intolerable siege," he said.
He went to the door and called for Marjorie, who appeared with
conspicuous promptitude. She was in a dress of green linen that made her
seem very cool as well as very dignified to Trafford; she was tense with
restrained excitement, and either--for these things shade into each
other--entirely without a disposition to act her part or acting with
consummate ability. Trafford rose at the sight of her, and remained
standing. Mr. Pope closed the door and walked back to the desk. "Mr.
Trafford has to be told," he said, "that you don't want him in
Buryhamstreet." He arrested Marjorie's forward movement towards Trafford
by a gesture of the hand, seated himself, and resumed his drumming on
the table. "Well?" he said.
"I don't think you ought to stay in Buryhamstreet, Mr. Trafford," said
Marjorie.
"You don't want me to?"
"It will only cause trouble--and scenes."
"You want me to go?"
"Away from here."
"You really mean that?"
Marjorie did not answer for a little time; she seemed to be weighing the
exact force of all she was going to say.
"Mr. Trafford," she answered, "everything I've ever said to
you--everything--I've _meant_, more than I've ever meant anything.
Everything!"
A little flush of colour came into Trafford's cheeks. He regarded
Marjorie with a brightening eye.
"Oh well," he said, "I don't understand. But I'm entirely in your hands,
of course."
Marjorie's pose and expression altered. For an instant she was a miracle
of instinctive expression, she shone at him, she conveyed herself to
him, she assured him. Her eyes met his, she stood warmly flushed and
quite unconquered--visibly, magnificently _his_. She poured into him
just that riotous pride and admiration that gives a man altogether to a
woman.... Then it seemed as if a light passed, and she was just an
everyday Marjorie standing there.
"I'll do anything you want me to," said Trafford.
"Then I want you to go."
"Ah!" said Mr. Pope.
"Yes," said Trafford, with his eyes on her self-possession.
"I've promised not to write or send to you, or--think more than I can
help of you, until I'm twenty-one--nearly two months from now."
"And then?"
"I don't know. How can I?"
"You hear, sir?" from Mr. Pope, in the pause of mutual scrutiny that
followed.
"One question," said Mr. Trafford.
"You've surely asked enough, sir," said Mr. Pope.
"Are you still engaged to Magnet?"
"Sir!"
"Please, father;" said Marjorie, with unusual daring and in her mother's
voice. "Mr. Trafford, after what I've told you--you must leave that to
me."
"She _is_ engaged to Mr. Magnet," said Mr. Pope. "Tell him outright,
Marjorie. Make it clear."
"I think I understand," said Trafford, with his eyes on Marjorie.
"I've not seen Mr. Magnet since last night," said Marjorie. "And
so--naturally--I'm still engaged to him."
"Precisely!" said Mr. Pope, and turned with a face of harsh
interrogation to his importunate caller. Mr. Trafford seemed disposed
for further questions. "I don't think we need detain you, Madge," said
Mr. Pope, over his shoulder.
The two young people stood facing one another for a moment, and I am
afraid that they were both extremely happy and satisfied with each
other. It was all right, they were quite sure--all right. Their lips
were almost smiling. Then Marjorie made an entirely dignified exit. She
closed the door very softly, and Mr. Pope turned to his visitor again
with a bleak politeness. "I hope that satisfies you," he said.
"There is nothing more to be said at present, I admit," said Mr.
Trafford.
"Nothing," said Mr. Pope.
Both gentlemen bowed. Mr. Pope rose ceremoniously, and Mr. Trafford
walked doorward. He had a sense of latent absurdities in these
tremendous attitudes. They passed through the hall--processionally. But
just at the end some lower strain in Mr. Trafford's nature touched the
fine dignity of the occasion with an inappropriate remark.
"Good-bye, sir," said Mr. Pope, holding the housedoor wide.
"Good-bye, sir," said Mr. Trafford, and then added with a note of
untimely intimacy in his voice, with an inexcusable levity upon his
lips: "You know--there's nobody--no man in the world--I'd sooner have
for a father-in-law than you."
Mr. Pope, caught unprepared on the spur of the moment, bowed in a cold
and distant manner, and then almost immediately closed the door to save
himself from violence....
From first to last neither gentleman had made the slightest allusion to
a considerable bruise upon Mr. Trafford's left cheek, and a large
abrasion above his ear.