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, and
to his manner 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,'I 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 Hazeldeani?"
"There are other motives than those you speak of,--the need of
protection, the sense of solitude, the curse of dependence, gratitude
for honourable 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 cannot 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 wilfully 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. Commonsense, common earth, is above or below
your comprehension."
Both now are 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 tones 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."