“Yes;—he told me you were here, and he said I ought to come.”
“I don’t know about ought, but I think it better. Will you mind walking on, as I’ve got something that I want to say?” Then he turned and she turned with him into the little wood. “I’m not going to bother you any more, my darling,” he said. “You are still my darling, though I will not call you so after this.” Her heart sank almost in her bosom as she heard this—though it was exactly what she would have wished to hear. But now there must be some close understanding between them and some tenderness. She knew how much she had owed him, how good he had been to her, how true had been his love; and she felt that words would fail her to say that which ought to be said. “So you have given yourself to—one Ferdinand Lopez!”
“Yes,” she said, in a hard, dry voice. “Yes; I have. I do not know who told you; but I have.”
“Your father told me. It was better—was it not?—that I should know. You are not sorry that I should know?”
“It is better.”
“I am not going to say a word against him.”
“No;—do not do that.”
“Nor against you. I am simply here now to let you know that—I retire.”
“You will not quarrel with me, Arthur?”
“Quarrel with you! I could not quarrel with you, if I would. No;—there shall be no quarrel. But I do not suppose we shall see each other very often.”
“I hope we may.”
“Sometimes, perhaps. A man should not, I think, affect to be friends with a successful rival. I dare say he is an excellent fellow, but how is it possible that he and I should get on together? But you will always have one—one besides him—who will love you best in this world.”
“No;—no;—no.”
“It must be so. There will be nothing wrong in that. Everyone has some dearest friend, and you will always be mine. If anything of evil should ever happen to you—which of course there won’t—there would be someone who would—. But I don’t want to talk buncum; I only want you to believe me. Goodbye, and God bless you.” Then he put out his right hand, holding his hat under his left arm.
“You are not going away?”
“Tomorrow, perhaps. But I will say my real goodbye to you here, now, today. I hope you may be happy. I hope it with all my heart. Goodbye. God bless you!”
“Oh, Arthur!” Then she put her hand in his.
“Oh, I have loved you so dearly. It has been with my whole heart. You have never quite understood me, but it has been as true as heaven. I have thought sometimes that had I been a little less earnest about it, I should have been a little less stupid. A man shouldn’t let it get the better of him, as I have done. Say goodbye to me, Emily.”
“Goodbye,” she said, still leaving her hand in his.
“I suppose that’s about all. Don’t let them quarrel with you here if you can help it. Of course at Longbarns they won’t like it for a time. Oh—if it could have been different!” Then he dropped her hand, and turning his back quickly upon her, went away along the path.
She had expected and had almost wished that he should kiss her. A girl’s cheek is never so holy to herself as it is to her lover—if he do love her. There would have been something of reconciliation, something of a promise of future kindness in a kiss, which even Ferdinand would not have grudged. It would, for her, have robbed the parting of that bitterness of pain which his words had given to it. As to all that, he had made no calculation; but the bitterness was there for him, and he could have done nothing that would have expelled it.
She wept bitterly as she returned to the house. There might have been cause for joy. It was clear enough that her father, though he had shown no sign to her of yielding, was nevertheless prepared to yield. It was her father who had caused Arthur Fletcher to take himself off, as a lover really dismissed. But, at this moment, she could not bring herself to look at that aspect of the affair. Her mind would revert to all those choicest moments in her early years in which she had been happy with Arthur Fletcher; in which she had first learned to love him, and had then taught herself to understand by some confused and perplexed lesson that she did not love him as men and women love. But why should she not so have loved him? Would she not have done so could she then have understood how true and firm he was? And then, independently of herself, throwing herself aside for the time as she was bound to do when thinking of one so good to her as Arthur Fletcher, she found that no personal joy could drown the grief which she shared with him. For a moment the idea of a comparison between the two men forced itself upon her—but she drove it from her as she hurried back to the house.
XVIII
The Duke of Omnium Thinks of Himself
The blaze made by the Duchess of Omnium during the three months of the season up in London had been very great, but it was little in comparison with the social coruscation expected to be achieved at Gatherum Castle—little at least as far as public report went, and the general opinion of the day. No doubt the house in Carlton Gardens had been thrown open as the house of no Prime Minister, perhaps of no duke, had been opened before in this country; but it had been done by degrees, and had not been accompanied by such a blowing of trumpets as was sounded with reference to the
