On entering the drawing-room of Madame di Negra, the peculiar charm
which the severe Audley Egerton had been ever reputed to possess
with women, would have sensibly struck one who had hitherto seen him
chiefly in his relations with men in the business-like affairs of
life. It was a charm in strong contrast to the ordinary manners of
those who are emphatically called "Ladies' men." No artificial
smile, no conventional hollow blandness, no frivolous gossip, no
varnish either of ungenial gayety or affected grace. The charm was
in a simplicity that unbent more into kindness than it did with men.
Audley's nature, whatever its faults and defects, was essentially
masculine; and it was the sense of masculine power that gave to his
voice a music when addressing the gentler sex--a sort of indulgent
tenderness that appeared equally void of insincerity and
presumption.
Frank had been gone about half-an-hour, and Madame di Negra was
scarcely recovered from the agitation into which she had been thrown
by the affront from the father and the pleading of the son.
Egerton took her passive hand cordially, and seated himself by her
side.
"My dear Marchesa," said he, "are we then likely to be near
connections? And can you seriously contemplate marriage with my
young nephew, Frank Hazeldean? You turn away. Ah, my fair friend,
there are but two inducements to a free woman to sign away her
liberty at the altar. I say a free woman, for widows are free, and
girls are not. These inducements are, first, worldly position;
secondly, love. Which of these motives can urge Madame di Negra to
marry Mr. Frank Hazeldean?"
"There are other motives than those you speak of--the
need of protection--the sense of solitude--the curse of
dependence--gratitude for honorable affection. But you men never
know women!"
"I grant that you are right there--we never do; neither do women
ever know men. And yet each sex contrives to dupe and to fool the
other! Listen to me. I have little acquaintance with my nephew, but
I allow he is a handsome young gentleman, with whom a handsome young
lady in her teens might fall in love in a ball-room. But you who
have known the higher order of our species--you who have received
the homage of men, whose thoughts and mind leave the small talk of
drawing-room triflers--so poor and bald--you can not look me in the
face and say that it is any passion resembling love which you feel
for my nephew. And as to position, it is right that I should inform
you that if he marry you he will have none. He may risk his
inheritance. You will receive no countenance from his parents. You
will be poor, but not free. You will not gain the independence you
seek for. The sight of a vacant, discontented face in that opposite
chair will be worse than solitude. And as to grateful affection,"
added the man of the world, "it is a polite synonym for tranquil
indifference."
"Mr. Egerton," said Beatrice, "people say you are made of bronze.
Did you ever feel the want of a home?"
"I answer you frankly," replied the statesman, "if I had not felt
it, do you think I should have been, and that I should be to the
last, the joyless drudge of public life? Bronze though you call my
nature, it would have melted away long since like wax in the fire,
if I had sat idly down and dreamed of a _Home_!"
"But we women," answered Beatrice, with pathos, "have no public
life, and we do idly sit down and dream. Oh," she continued, after a
short pause, and clasping her hands firmly together, "you think me
worldly, grasping, ambitious; how different my fate had been had I
known a home!--known one whom I could love and venerate--known one
whose smiles would have developed the good that was once within me,
and the fear of whose rebuking or sorrowful eye would have corrected
what is evil."
"Yet," answered Audley, "nearly all women in the great world have
had that choice once in their lives, and nearly all have thrown it
away. How few of your rank really think of home when they marry--how
few ask to venerate as well as to love--and how many of every rank,
when the home has been really gained, have willfully lost its
shelter; some in neglectful weariness--some from a momentary doubt,
distrust, caprice--a wild fancy--a passionate fit--a trifle--a
straw--a dream! True, you women are ever dreamers. Common sense,
common earth, is above or below your comprehension."
Both now were silent, Audley first roused himself with a quick,
writhing movement. "We two," said he, smiling half sadly, half
cynically--"we two must not longer waste time in talking sentiment.
We know both too well what life, as it has been made for us by our
faults or our misfortunes, truly is. And once again, I entreat you
to pause before you yield to the foolish suit of my foolish nephew.
Rely on it, you will either command a higher offer for your prudence
to accept; or, if you needs must sacrifice rank and fortune, you,
with your beauty and your romantic heart, will see one who, at least
for a fair holiday season (if human love allows no more), can repay
you for the sacrifice. Frank Hazeldean never can."
Beatrice turned away to conceal the tears that rushed to her eyes.
"Think over this well," said Audley, in the softest tone of his
mellow voice. "Do you remember that when you first came to England,
I told you that neither wedlock nor love had any lures for me. We
grew friends upon that rude avowal, and therefore I now speak to you
like some sage of old, wise because standing apart and aloof from
all the affections and ties that mislead our wisdom. Nothing but
real love--(how rare it is; has one human heart in a million ever
known it!) nothing but real love can repay us for the loss of
freedom--the cares and fears of poverty--the cold pity of the world
that we both despise and respect. And all these, and much more,
follow the step you would inconsiderately take--an imprudent
marriage."
"Audley Egerton," said Beatrice, lifting her dark, moistened eyes,
"you grant that real love does compensate for an imprudent marriage.
You speak as if you had known such love--you! Can it be possible?"
"Real love--I thought that I knew it once. Looking back with
remorse, I should doubt it now but for one curse that only real
love, when lost, has the power to leave evermore behind it."
"What is that?"
"A void here," answered Egerton, striking his heart.
"Desolation!--Adieu!"
He rose and left the room.
"Is it," murmured Egerton, as he pursued his way through the
streets--"is it that, as we approach death, all the first fair
feelings of young life come back to us mysteriously? Thus I have
heard, or read, that in some country of old, children scattering
flowers, preceded a funeral bier."