"My love is like the sky,
As distant and as high;
Perchance she's fair and kind and bright,
Perchance she's stormy--tearful quite--
Alas! I scarce know why."
It is late in the day when the professor enters Lady Baring's house.
He had determined not to wait till the morrow to see Perpetua. It
seemed to him that it would be impossible to go through another
sleepless night, with this raging doubt, this cruel uncertainty in
his heart.
He finds her in the library, the soft light of the dying evening
falling on her little slender figure. She is sitting in a big
armchair, all in black--as he best knows her--with a book upon her
knee. She looks charming, and fresh as a new-born flower. Evidently
neither lest night's party nor to-day's afternoon have had power to
dim her beauty. Sleep had visited _her_ last night, at all events.
She springs out of her chair, and throws her book on the table near
her.
"Why, you are the very last person I expected," says she.
"No doubt," says the professor. Who was the _first_ person she had
expected? And will Hardinge be here presently to plead his cause in
person? "But it was imperative I should come. There is something I
have to tell you--to lay before you."
"Not a mummy, I trust," says she, a little flippantly.
"A proposal," says the professor, coldly. "Much as I know you
dislike the idea, still, it was your poor father's wish that I
should, in a measure, regulate your life until your coming of age. I
am here to-day to let you know--that--Mr. Hardinge has requested me
to tell you that he----"
The professor pauses, feeling that he is failing miserably. He, the
fluent speaker at lectures, and on public platforms, is now bereft
of the power to explain one small situation.
"What's the matter with Mr. Hardinge," asks Perpetua, "that he can't
come here himself? Nothing serious, I hope?"
"I am your guardian," says the professor--unfortunately, with all
the air of one profoundly sorry for the fact declared, "and he
wishes _me_ to tell you that he--is desirous of marrying you."
Perpetua stares at him. Whatever bitter thoughts are in her mind,
she conceals them.
"He is a most thoughtful young man," says she, blandly. "And--and
you're another."
"I hope I am thoughtful, if I am not young," says the professor,
with dignity. Her manner puzzles him. "With regard to Hardinge, I
wish you to know that--that I--have known him for years, and that he
is in my opinion a strictly honorable, kind-hearted man. He is of
good family. He has money. He will probably succeed to a
baronetcy--though this is not _certain,_ as his uncle is,
comparatively speaking, young still. But even without the title,
Hardinge is a man worthy of any woman's esteem, and confidence,
and----"
He is interrupted by Miss Wynter's giving way to a sudden burst of
mirth. It is mirth of the very angriest, but it checks him the more
effectually because of that.
"You must place great confidence in princes!" says she. "Even
_'without _the title, he is worthy of esteem.'" She copies him
audaciously. "What has a title got to do with esteem?--and what has
esteem got to do with love?"
"I should hope----" begins the professor.
"You needn't. It has nothing to do with it, nothing _at all._ Go
back and tell Mr. Hardinge so; and tell him, too, that when next he
goes a-wooing, he had better do it in person."
"I am afraid I have damaged my mission," says the professor, who has
never once looked at her since his first swift glance.
_"Your_ mission?"
"Yes. It was mere nervousness that prevented him coming to you first
himself. He said he had little to go on, and he said something about
a flower that you gave him----"
Perpetua makes a rapid movement toward a side table, takes a flower
from a bouquet there, and throws it at the professor. There is no
excuse to be made for her beyond the fact that her heart feels
breaking, and people with broken hearts do strange things every day.
"I would give a flower to _anyone!"_ says she in a quick scornful
fashion. The professor catches the ungraciously given gift, toys
with it, and--keeps it. Is that small action of his unseen?
"I hope," he says in a dull way, "that you are not angry with him
because he came first to me. It was a sense of duty--I know, I
_feel_--compelled him to do it, together with his honest diffidence
about your affection for him. Do not let pride stand in the way
of----"
"Nonsense!" says Perpetua, with a rapid movement of her hand. "Pride
has no part in it. I do not care for Mr. Hardinge--I shall not marry
him."
A little mist seems to gather before the professor's eyes. His
glasses seem in the way, he drops them, and now stands gazing at
her, as if disbelieving his senses. In fact he does disbelieve in
them.
"Are you sure?" persists he. "Afterwards you may regret----"
"Oh, no!" says she, shaking her head. _"Mr. Hardinge_ will not be
the one to cause me regret."
"Still, think----"
"Think! Do you imagine I have not been thinking?" cries she, with
sudden passion. "Do you imagine I do not know why you plead his
cause so eloquently? You want to get _rid_ of me. You are _tired_ of
me. You always thought me heartless, about my poor father even, and
unloving, and--hateful, and----"
"Not heartless; what have I done, Perpetua, that you should say
that?"
"Nothing. That is what I _detest_ about you. If you said outright
what you were thinking of me, I could bear it better."
"But my thoughts of you. They are----" He pauses. What _are_ they?
What are his thoughts of her at all hours, all seasons? "They are
always kind," says he, lamely, in a low tone, looking at the carpet.
That downward glance condemns him in her eyes--to her it is but a
token of his guilt towards her.
"They are _not!"_ says she, with a little stamp of her foot that
makes the professor jump. "You think of me as a cruel, wicked,
worldly girl, who would marry _anyone_ to gain position."
Here her fury dies away. It is overcome by something stronger. She
trembles, pales, and finally bursts into a passion of tears that
have no anger in them, only intense grief.
"I do not," says the professor, who is trembling too, but whose
utterance is firm. "Whatever my thoughts are, _your_ reading of them
is entirely wrong."
"Well, at all events you can't deny one thing," says she checking
her sobs, and gazing at him again with undying enmity. "You want to
get rid of me, you are determined to marry me to some one, so as to
get me out of your way. But I shan't marry to please _you._ I
needn't either. There is somebody else who wants to marry me besides
your--_your_ candidate!" with an indignant glance. "I have had a
letter from Sir Hastings this afternoon. And," rebelliously, "I
haven't answered it yet."
"Then you shall answer it now," says the professor. "And you shall
say 'no' to him."
"Why? Because you order me?"
"Partly because of that. Partly because I trust to your own
instincts to see the wisdom of so doing."
"Ah! you beg the question," says he, "but I'm not so sure I shall
obey you for all that."
"Perpetua! Do not speak to me like that, I implore you," says the
professor, very pale. "Do you think I am not saying all this for
your good? Sir Hastings--he is my brother--it is hard for me to
explain myself, but he will not make you happy."
"Happy! _You_ think of my happiness?"
"Of what else?" A strange yearning look comes into his eyes. "God
knows it is _all_ I think of," says he.
"And so you would marry me to Mr. Hardinge?"
"Hardinge is a good man, and--he loves you."
"If so, he is the only one on earth who does," cries the girl
bitterly. She turns abruptly away, and struggles with herself for a
moment, then looks back at him. "Well, I shall not marry him," says
she.
"That is in your own hands," says the professor. "But I shall have
something to say about the other proposal you speak of."
"Do you think I want to marry your brother?" says she. "I tell you
no, no, _no!_ A thousand times no! The very fact that he _is_ your
brother would prevent me. To be you ward is bad enough, to be your
sister-in-law would be insufferable. For all the world I would not
be more to you than I am now."
"It is a wise decision," says the professor icily. He feels smitten
to his very heart's core. Had he ever dreamed of a nearer, dearer
tie between them?--if so the dream is broken now.
"Decision?" stammers she.
"Not to marry my brother."
"Not to be more to you, you mean!"
"You don't know what you are saying," says the professor, driven
beyond his self-control. "You are a mere child, a baby, you speak
at random."
"What!" cries she, flashing round at him, "will you deny that I have
been a trouble to you, that you would have been thankful had you
never heard my name?"
"You are right," gravely. "I deny nothing. I wish with all my soul I
had never heard your name. I confess you have troubled me. I go
beyond even _that,_ I declare that you have been my undoing! And
now, let us make an end of it. I am a poor man and a busy one, this
task your father laid upon my shoulders is too heavy for me. I shall
resign my guardianship; Gwendoline--Lady Baring--will accept the
position. She likes you, and--you will find it hard to break _her_
heart."
"Do you mean," says the girl, "that I have broken yours? _Yours?_
Have I been so bad as that? Yours? I have been wilful, I know, and
troublesome, but troublesome people do not break one's heart. What
have I done then that yours should be broken?" She has moved closer
to him. Her eyes are gazing with passionate question into his.
"Do not think of that," says the professor, unsteadily. "Do not let
that trouble you. As I just now told you, I am a poor man, and poor
men cannot afford such luxuries as hearts."
"Yet poor men have them," says the girl in a little low stifled
tone. "And--and girls have them too!"
There is a long, long silence. To Curzon it seems as if the whole
world has undergone a strange, wild upheaval. What had she
meant--what? Her words! Her words meant something, but her looks,
her eyes, oh, how much more _they_ meant! And yet to listen to
her--to believe--he, her guardian, a poor man, and she an heiress!
Oh! no. Impossible.
"So much the worse for the poor men," says he deliberately.
There is no mistaking his meaning. Perpetua makes a little rapid
movement towards him--an almost imperceptible one. _Did_ she raise
her hands as if to hold them out to him? If so, it is so slight a
gesture as scarcely to be remembered afterwards, and at all events,
the professor takes no notice of it, presumably, therefore, he does
not see it.
"It is late," says Perpetua a moment afterwards. "I must go and
dress for dinner." _Her_ eyes are down now. She looks pale and
shamed.
"You have nothing to say, then?" asks the professor, compelling
himself to the question.
"About what?"
"Hardinge."
The girl turns a white face to his.
"Will you then _compel_ me to marry him?" says she. "Am
I"--faintly--"nothing to you? Nothing----" She seems to fade back
from him in the growing uncertainty of the light into the shadow of
the corner beyond. Curzon makes a step towards her.
At this moment the door is thrown suddenly open, and a
man--evidently a professional man--advances into the room.
"Sir Thaddeus," begins he, in a slow, measured way.
The professor stops dead short. Even Perpetua looks amazed.
"I regret to be the messenger of bad news, sir," says the solemn man
in black. "They told me I should find you here. I have to tell you,
Sir Thaddeus, that your brother, the late lamented Sir Hastings, is
dead." The solemn man spread his hands abroad.