“You can’t make anything of her—except to insult her—and me too by talking of her.”
“I don’t quite understand this,” said the unfortunate lover, getting up from his seat. “Very likely she won’t have me. Perhaps she has told you so.”
“She never mentioned your name to me in her life. I don’t suppose she remembers your existence.”
“But I say that there can be no insult in such a one as me asking such a one as her to be my wife. To say that she doesn’t remember my existence is absurd.”
“Why should I be troubled with all this?”
“Because I think you’re making a fool of her, and because I’m honest. That’s why,” said Dolly with much energy. There was something in this which partly reconciled Silverbridge to his despised rival. There was a touch of truth about the man, though he was so utterly mistaken in his ideas. “I want you to give over in order that I may try again. I don’t think you ought to keep a girl from her promotion, merely for the fun of a flirtation. Perhaps you’re fond of her;—but you won’t marry her. I am fond of her, and I shall.”
After a minute’s pause Silverbridge resolved that he would be magnanimous. “Miss Boncassen is going to be my wife,” he said.
“Your wife!”
“Yes;—my wife. And now I think you will see that nothing further can be said about this matter.”
“Duchess of Omnium!”
“She will be Lady Silverbridge.”
“Oh; of course she’ll be that first. Then I’ve got nothing further to say. I’m not going to enter myself to run against you. Only I shouldn’t have believed it if anybody else had told me.”
“Such is my good fortune.”
“Oh ah—yes; of course. That is one way of looking at it. Well; Silverbridge, I’ll tell you what I shall do; I shall hook it.”
“No; no, not you.”
“Yes, I shall. I dare say you won’t believe me, but I’ve got such a feeling about me here”—as he said this he laid his hand upon his heart—“that if I stayed I should go in for hard drinking. I shall take the great Asiatic tour. I know a fellow that wants to go, but he hasn’t got any money. I dare say I shall be off before the end of next month. You don’t know any fellow that would buy half-a-dozen hunters; do you?” Silverbridge shook his head. “Goodbye,” said Dolly in a melancholy tone; “I am sure I am very much obliged to you for telling me. If I’d known you’d meant it, I shouldn’t have meddled, of course. Duchess of Omnium!”
“Look here, Dolly, I have told you what I should not have told anyone, but I wanted to screen the young lady’s name.”
“It was so kind of you.”
“Do not repeat it. It is a kind of thing that ladies are particular about. They choose their own time for letting everybody know.” Then Dolly promised to be as mute as a fish, and took his departure.
Silverbridge had felt, towards the end of the interview, that he had been arrogant to the unfortunate man—particularly in saying that the young lady would not remember the existence of such a suitor—and had also recognised a certain honesty in the man’s purpose, which had not been the less honest because it was so absurd. Actuated by the consciousness of this, he had swallowed his anger, and had told the whole truth. Nevertheless things had been said which were horrible to him. This buffoon of a man had called his Isabel a—pert poppet! How was he to get over the remembrance of such an offence? And then the wretch had declared that he was—enamoured! There was sacrilege in the term when applied by such a man to Isabel Boncassen. He had thoughts of days to come, when everything would be settled, when he might sit close to her, and call her pretty names—when he might in sweet familiarity tell her that she was a little Yankee and a fierce republican, and “chaff” her about the stars and stripes; and then, as he pictured the scene to himself in his imagination, she would lean upon him and would give him back his chaff, and would call him an aristocrat and would laugh at his titles. As he thought of all this he would be proud with the feeling that such privileges would be his own. And now this wretched man had called her a pert poppet!
There was a sanctity about her—a divinity which made it almost a profanity to have talked about her at all to such a one as Dolly Longstaff. She was his Holy of Holies, at which vulgar eyes should not even be allowed to gaze. It had been a most unfortunate interview. But this was clear; that, as he had announced his engagement to such a one as Dolly Longstaff, the matter now would admit of no delay. He would explain to his father that as tidings of the engagement had got abroad, honour to the young lady would compel him to come forward openly as her suitor at once. If this argument might serve him, then perhaps this intrusion would not have been altogether a misfortune.
LXX
“Love May Be a Great Misfortune”
Silverbridge when he reached Brook Street that day was surprised to find that a large party was going to lunch there. Isabel had asked him to come, and he had thought her the dearest girl in the world for doing so. But now his gratitude for that favour was considerably abated. He did not care just now for the honour of eating his lunch in the presence of Mr. Gotobed, the American minister, whom he found there already in the drawing-room with Mrs. Gotobed, nor
