It was quite true that De Stancy at the present period of his existence
wished only to escape from the hurly-burly of active life, and to win
the affection of Paula Power. There were, however, occasions when a
recollection of his old renunciatory vows would obtrude itself upon him,
and tinge his present with wayward bitterness. So much was this the case
that a day or two after they had arrived at Mainz he could not refrain
from making remarks almost prejudicial to his cause, saying to her, ‘I
am unfortunate in my situation. There are, unhappily, worldly reasons
why I should pretend to love you, even if I do not: they are so strong
that, though really loving you, perhaps they enter into my thoughts of
you.’
‘I don’t want to know what such reasons are,’ said Paula, with
promptness, for it required but little astuteness to discover that he
alluded to the alienated Wessex home and estates. ‘You lack tone,’ she
gently added: ‘that’s why the situation of affairs seems distasteful to
you.’
‘Yes, I suppose I am ill. And yet I am well enough.’
These remarks passed under a tree in the public gardens during an odd
minute of waiting for Charlotte and Mrs. Goodman; and he said no more to
her in private that day. Few as her words had been he liked them better
than any he had lately received. The conversation was not resumed till
they were gliding ‘between the banks that bear the vine,’ on board one
of the Rhine steamboats, which, like the hotels in this early summer
time, were comparatively free from other English travellers; so that
everywhere Paula and her party were received with open arms and cheerful
countenances, as among the first swallows of the season.
The saloon of the steamboat was quite empty, the few passengers being
outside; and this paucity of voyagers afforded De Stancy a roomy
opportunity.
Paula saw him approach her, and there appearing in his face signs that
he would begin again on the eternal subject, she seemed to be struck
with a sense of the ludicrous.
De Stancy reddened. ‘Something seems to amuse you,’ he said.
‘It is over,’ she replied, becoming serious.
‘Was it about me, and this unhappy fever in me?’
‘If I speak the truth I must say it was.’
‘You thought, “Here’s that absurd man again, going to begin his daily
supplication.”’
‘Not “absurd,”’ she said, with emphasis; ‘because I don’t think it is
absurd.’
She continued looking through the windows at the Lurlei Heights under
which they were now passing, and he remained with his eyes on her.
‘May I stay here with you?’ he said at last. ‘I have not had a word with
you alone for four-and-twenty hours.’
‘You must be cheerful, then.’
‘You have said such as that before. I wish you would say “loving”
instead of “cheerful.”’
‘Yes, I know, I know,’ she responded, with impatient perplexity. ‘But
why must you think of me--me only? Is there no other woman in the world
who has the power to make you happy? I am sure there must be.’
‘Perhaps there is; but I have never seen her.’
‘Then look for her; and believe me when I say that you will certainly
find her.’
He shook his head.
‘Captain De Stancy, I have long felt for you,’ she continued, with a
frank glance into his face. ‘You have deprived yourself too long of
other women’s company. Why not go away for a little time? and when
you have found somebody else likely to make you happy, you can meet me
again. I will see you at your father’s house, and we will enjoy all the
pleasure of easy friendship.’
‘Very correct; and very cold, O best of women!’
‘You are too full of exclamations and transports, I think!’
They stood in silence, Paula apparently much interested in the
manoeuvring of a raft which was passing by. ‘Dear Miss Power,’ he
resumed, ‘before I go and join your uncle above, let me just ask, Do I
stand any chance at all yet? Is it possible you can never be more pliant
than you have been?’
‘You put me out of all patience!’
‘But why did you raise my hopes? You should at least pity me after doing
that.’
‘Yes; it’s that again! I unfortunately raised your hopes because I was
a fool--was not myself that moment. Now question me no more. As it is I
think you presume too much upon my becoming yours as the consequence of
my having dismissed another.’
‘Not on becoming mine, but on listening to me.’
‘Your argument would be reasonable enough had I led you to believe I
would listen to you--and ultimately accept you; but that I have not
done. I see now that a woman who gives a man an answer one shade less
peremptory than a harsh negative may be carried beyond her intentions,
and out of her own power before she knows it.’
‘Chide me if you will; I don’t care!’
She looked steadfastly at him with a little mischief in her eyes. ‘You
DO care,’ she said.
‘Then why don’t you listen to me? I would not persevere for a moment
longer if it were against the wishes of your family. Your uncle says it
would give him pleasure to see you accept me.’
‘Does he say why?’ she asked thoughtfully.
‘Yes; he takes, of course, a practical view of the matter; he thinks it
commends itself so to reason and common sense that the owner of Stancy
Castle should become a member of the De Stancy family.’
‘Yes, that’s the horrid plague of it,’ she said, with a nonchalance
which seemed to contradict her words. ‘It is so dreadfully reasonable
that we should marry. I wish it wasn’t!’
‘Well, you are younger than I, and perhaps that’s a natural wish. But to
me it seems a felicitous combination not often met with. I confess that
your interest in our family before you knew me lent a stability to my
hopes that otherwise they would not have had.’
‘My interest in the De Stancys has not been a personal interest except
in the case of your sister,’ she returned. ‘It has been an historical
interest only; and is not at all increased by your existence.’
‘And perhaps it is not diminished?’
‘No, I am not aware that it is diminished,’ she murmured, as she
observed the gliding shore.
‘Well, you will allow me to say this, since I say it without reference
to your personality or to mine--that the Power and De Stancy families
are the complements to each other; and that, abstractedly, they call
earnestly to one another: “How neat and fit a thing for us to join
hands!”’
Paula, who was not prudish when a direct appeal was made to her common
sense, answered with ready candour: ‘Yes, from the point of view of
domestic politics, that undoubtedly is the case. But I hope I am not so
calculating as to risk happiness in order to round off a social idea.’
‘I hope not; or that I am either. Still the social idea exists, and my
increased years make its excellence more obvious to me than to you.’
The ice once broken on this aspect of the question, the subject seemed
further to engross her, and she spoke on as if daringly inclined to
venture where she had never anticipated going, deriving pleasure from
the very strangeness of her temerity: ‘You mean that in the fitness of
things I ought to become a De Stancy to strengthen my social position?’
‘And that I ought to strengthen mine by alliance with the heiress of a
name so dear to engineering science as Power.’
‘Well, we are talking with unexpected frankness.’
‘But you are not seriously displeased with me for saying what, after
all, one can’t help feeling and thinking?’
‘No. Only be so good as to leave off going further for the present.
Indeed, of the two, I would rather have the other sort of address. I
mean,’ she hastily added, ‘that what you urge as the result of a real
affection, however unsuitable, I have some remote satisfaction in
listening to--not the least from any reciprocal love on my side, but
from a woman’s gratification at being the object of anybody’s devotion;
for that feeling towards her is always regarded as a merit in a woman’s
eye, and taken as a kindness by her, even when it is at the expense of
her convenience.’
She had said, voluntarily or involuntarily, better things than he
expected, and perhaps too much in her own opinion, for she hardly gave
him an opportunity of replying.
They passed St. Goar and Boppard, and when steering round the sharp
bend of the river just beyond the latter place De Stancy met her again,
exclaiming, ‘You left me very suddenly.’
‘You must make allowances, please,’ she said; ‘I have always stood in
need of them.’
‘Then you shall always have them.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ she said quickly; but Paula was not to be caught
again, and kept close to the side of her aunt while they glided past
Brauback and Oberlahnstein. Approaching Coblenz her aunt said, ‘Paula,
let me suggest that you be not so much alone with Captain De Stancy.’
‘And why?’ said Paula quietly.
‘You’ll have plenty of offers if you want them, without taking trouble,’
said the direct Mrs. Goodman. ‘Your existence is hardly known to the
world yet, and Captain De Stancy is too near middle-age for a girl like
you.’ Paula did not reply to either of these remarks, being seemingly so
interested in Ehrenbreitstein’s heights as not to hear them.