“What is to be the end of it?”
“I do not know. If you think yourself injured you can back out of it at once. I’ve nothing more to say about it.”
“And you think I can like the way you’re going on here?”
“If you’re jealous, Mr. Morton, there’s an end of it. I tell you fairly once for all, that as long as I’m a single woman I will regulate my conduct as I please. You can do the same, and I shall not say a word to you.” Then she withdrew her arm from him, and, leaving him, walked across the room and joined her mother. He went off at once to his own room resolving that he would write to her from Bragton. He had made his propositions in regard to money which he was quite aware were as liberal as was fit. If she would now fix a day for their marriage, he would be a happy man. If she would not bring herself to do this, then he would have no alternative but to regard their engagement as at an end.
At two o’clock the guests were nearly all gone. The Major was alive, and likely to live at least for some hours, and the Rufford people generally were glad that they had not put off the ball. Some of them who were staying in the house had already gone to bed, and Lady Penwether, with Miss Penge at her side, was making her last adieux in the drawing-room. The ballroom was reached from the drawing-room, with a vestibule between them, and opening from this was a small chamber, prettily furnished but seldom used, which had no peculiar purpose of its own, but in which during the present evening many sweet words had probably been spoken. Now, at this last moment, Lord Rufford and Arabella Trefoil were there alone together. She had just got up from a sofa, and he had taken her hand in his. She did not attempt to withdraw it, but stood looking down upon the ground. Then he passed his arm round her waist and lifting her face to his held her in a close embrace from which she made no effort to free herself. As soon as she was released she hastened to the door which was all but closed, and as she opened it and passed through to the drawing-room said some ordinary word to him quite aloud in her ordinary voice. If his action had disturbed her she knew very well how to recover her equanimity.
XXV
The Last Morning at Rufford Hall
“Well, my love?” said Lady Augustus, as soon as her daughter had joined her in her bedroom. On such occasions there was always a quarter of an hour before going to bed in which the mother and daughter discussed their affairs, while the two lady’s maids were discussing their affairs in the other room. The two maids probably did not often quarrel, but the mother and daughter usually did.
“I wish that stupid man hadn’t got himself hurt.”
“Of course, my dear; we all wish that. But I really don’t see that it has stood much in your way.”
“Yes it has. After all there is nothing like dancing, and we shouldn’t all have been sent to bed at two o’clock.”
“Then it has come to nothing?”
“I didn’t say that at all, mamma. I think I have done uncommonly well. Indeed I know I have. But then if everything had not been upset, I might have done so much better.”
“What have you done?” asked Lady Augustus, timidly. She knew perfectly well that her daughter would tell her nothing, and yet she always asked these questions and was always angry when no information was given to her. Any young woman would have found it very hard to give the information needed. “When we were alone he sat for five minutes with his arm round my waist, and then he kissed me. He didn’t say much, but then I knew perfectly well that he would be on his guard not to commit himself by words. But I’ve got him to promise that he’ll write to me, and of course I’ll answer in such a way that he must write again. I know he’ll want to see me, and I think I can go very near doing it. But he’s an old stager and knows what he’s about: and of course there’ll be ever so many people to tell him I’m not the sort of girl he ought to marry. He’ll hear about Colonel de B⸺, and Sir C. D⸺, and Lord E. F⸺, and there are ever so many chances against me. But I’ve made up my mind to try it. It’s taking the long odds. I can hardly expect to win, but if I do pull it off I’m made forever!” A daughter can hardly say all that to her mother. Even Arabella Trefoil could not say it to her mother—or, at any rate, she would not. “What a question that is to ask, mamma?” she did say tossing her head.
“Well, my dear, unless you tell me something how can I help you?”
“I don’t know that I want you to help me—at any rate not in that way.”
“In what way?”
“Oh, mamma, you are so odd.”
“Has he said anything?”
“Yes, he has. He said he liked dry champagne and that he never ate supper.”
“If you won’t tell me how things are going you may fight your own battles by yourself.”
“That’s just what I must do. Nobody else can fight my battles for me.”
“What are you going to do about Mr. Morton?”
“Nothing.”
“I saw him talking to you and looking as black as thunder.”
“He always looks as black as thunder.”
“Is that to be all off? I insist upon having an answer to that question.”
“I believe you fancy, mamma, that a lot of men can be played like a
