“I believe I am in a condition to offer my hand and fortune to any young lady without impropriety,” said Mr. Spooner.
“I don’t know anything about your condition.”
“But I will tell you everything.”
“I don’t want to know anything about it.”
“I have an estate of—”
“I don’t want to know about your estate. I won’t hear about your estate. It can be nothing to me.”
“It is generally considered to be a matter of some importance.”
“It is of no importance to me, at all, Mr. Spooner; and I won’t hear anything about it. If all the parish belonged to you, it would not make any difference.”
“All the parish does belong to me, and nearly all the next,” replied Mr. Spooner, with great dignity.
“Then you’d better find some lady who would like to have two parishes. They haven’t any weight with me at all.” At that moment she told herself how much she would prefer even Bou—logne, to Mr. Spooner’s two parishes.
“What is it that you find so wrong about me?” asked the unhappy suitor.
Adelaide looked at him, and longed to tell him that his nose was red. And, though she would not quite do that, she could not bring herself to spare him. What right had he to come to her—a nasty, red-nosed old man, who knew nothing about anything but foxes and horses—to her, who had never given him the encouragement of a single smile? She could not allude to his nose, but in regard to his other defects she would not spare him. “Our tastes are not the same, Mr. Spooner.”
“You are very fond of hunting.”
“And our ages are not the same.”
“I always thought that there should be a difference of age,” said Mr. Spooner, becoming very red.
“And—and—and—it’s altogether quite preposterous. I don’t believe that you can really think it yourself.”
“But I do.”
“Then you must unthink it. And, indeed, Mr. Spooner, since you drive me to say so—I consider it to be very unmanly of you, after what Lord Chiltern told you in his letter.”
“But I believe that is all over.”
Then her anger flashed up very high. “And if you do believe it, what a mean man you must be to come to me when you must know how miserable I am, and to think that I should be driven to accept you after losing him! You never could have been anything to me. If you wanted to get married at all, you should have done it before I was born.” This was hard upon the man, as at that time he could not have been much more than twenty. “But you don’t know anything of the difference in people if you think that any girl would look at you, after having been—loved by Mr. Maule. Now, as you do not seem inclined to go away, I shall leave you.” So saying, she walked off with stately step, out of the room, leaving the door open behind her to facilitate her escape.
She had certainly been very rude to him, and had treated him very badly. Of that he was sure. He had conferred upon her what is commonly called the highest compliment which a gentleman can pay to a lady, and she had insulted him;—had doubly insulted him. She had referred to his age, greatly exaggerating his misfortune in that respect; and she had compared him to that poor beggar Maule in language most offensive. When she left him, he put his hand beneath his waistcoat, and turned with an air almost majestic towards the window. But in an instant he remembered that there was nobody there to see how he bore his punishment, and he sank down into human nature. “Damnation!” he said, as he put his hands into his trousers pockets.
Slowly he made his way down into the hall, and slowly he opened for himself the front door, and escaped from the house on to the gravel drive. There he found his cousin Ned still seated in the phaeton, and slowly driving round the circle in front of the hall door. The squire succeeded in gaining such command over his own gait and countenance that his cousin divined nothing of the truth as he clambered up into his seat. But he soon showed his temper. “What the devil have you got the reins in this way for?”
“The reins are all right,” said Ned.
“No they ain’t;—they’re all wrong.” And then he drove down the avenue to Spoon Hall as quickly as he could make the horses trot.
“Did you see her?” said Ned, as soon as they were beyond the gates.
“See your grandmother.”
“Do you mean to say that I’m not to ask?”
“There’s nothing I hate so much as a fellow that’s always asking questions,” said Tom Spooner. “There are some men so d⸺d thickheaded that they never know when they ought to hold their tongue.”
For a minute or two Ned bore the reproof in silence, and then he spoke. “If you are unhappy, Tom, I can bear a good deal; but don’t overdo it—unless you want me to leave you.”
“She’s the d⸺t vixen that ever had a tongue in her head,” said Tom Spooner, lifting his whip and striking the poor
