第60章

'I don't know how that is to be helped, my dear. You have got to think of money.'

'Yes; I have to think of it, and do think of it, and because I do so I am not what I call a gentleman.'

'No;--my dear, you're a lady.'

'Psha! you know what I mean. I might have had the feelings of a gentleman as well as the best man that was ever born. I haven't; but I have never done anything so mean as gambling. Now I have got something else to tell you.'

'What is it? You do frighten me so when you look like that.'

'You may well be frightened,--for if this all comes round I shall very soon be able to dispense with you altogether. His Royal Highness Lord Silverbridge--'

'What do you mean, Mabel?'

'He's next door to a Royal Highness at any rate, and a much more topping man than most of them. Well then;--His Serene Highness the heir of the Duke of Omnium has done me the inexpressible honour of asking me--to marry him.'

'No!'

'You may well say No. and to tell the exact truth, he didn't.'

'Then why do you say he did?'

'I don't think he did quite ask me, but he gave me to understand that he would do so if I gave him any encouragement.'

'Did he mean it?'

'Yes;--poor boy! He meant it. With a word;--with a look, he would have been down there kneeling. He asked me whether I liked him well enough. What do you think I did?'

'What did you do?'

'I spared him;--out of sheer downright Christian charity! I said to myself, "Love your neighbours." "Don't be selfish." "Do unto him as you would he should do unto you,"-that is, I think of his welfare. Though I had him in my net, I let him go. Shall I go to heaven for doing that?'

'I don't know,' said Miss Cassewarey, who was much perturbed by the news she had just heard as to be unable to come to any opinion on the point just raised.

'Or mayn't I rather go to the other place? From how much embarrassment should I have relieved my father! What a friend I should have made for Percival! How much I might have been able to do for Frank! And then what a wife I should have made him!'

'I think you would.'

'He'll never get another half so good; and he'll be sure to get one before long. It is a sort of tenderness that is quite inefficacious. He will become a prey, as I should have made him a prey. But where is there another who will treat him so well?'

'I cannot bear to hear you speak of yourself in that way.'

'But it is true. I know the sort of girl he should marry. In the first place she should be two years younger, and four years fresher. She should be able not only to like him and love him, but to worship him. How well I can see her! She should have fair hair, and bright green-grey eyes, with the sweetest complexion, and the prettiest little dimples;--two inches shorter than me, and the delight of her life should be to hang with two hands on his arm. She should have a feeling that her Silverbridge is an Apollo upon earth. To me he is a rather foolish, but very, very sweet-tempered young man;--anything rather than a god. If I thought that he would get the fresh young girl with the dimples then I ought to abstain.'

'If he was in earnest,' said Miss Cassewary, throwing aside all this badinage and thinking of the main point, 'if he was in earnest he will come again.'

'He was quite in earnest.'

'Then he will come again.'

'I don't think he will,' said Lady Mabel. 'I told him that I was too old for him, and I tried to laugh him out of it. He does not like being laughed at. He was been saved, and he will know it.'

'But if he should come again?'

'I shall not spare him again. No;--not twice. I felt it to be hard to do so once, because I so nearly love him! There are so many of them who are odious to me, as to whom the idea of marrying them seems to be mixed somehow with an idea of suicide.'

'Oh, Mabel!'

'But he is as sweet as a rose. If I were his sister, or his servant, or his dog, I could be devoted to him. I can fancy that his comfort and his success and his name should be everything to me.'

'That is what a wife ought to feel.'

'But I could never feel him to be my superior. That is what a wife ought to feel. Think of those two young men and the difference between them! Well;--don't look like that at me. I don't often give way, and I dare say after all I shall live to be the Duchess of Omnium.' Then she kissed her friend and went away to her own room.