“Do you really think so?”
“The courage, the ingenuity, and the self-confidence needed are certainly admirable. And then there is a cringing and almost contemptible littleness about honesty, which hardly allows it to assert itself. The really honest man can never say a word to make those who don’t know of his honesty believe that it is there. He has one foot in the grave before his neighbours have learned that he is possessed of an article for the use of which they would so willingly have paid, could they have been made to see that it was there. The dishonest man almost doubts whether in him dishonesty is dishonest, let it be practised ever so widely. The honest man almost doubts whether his honesty be honest, unless it be kept hidden. Let two unknown men be competitors for any place, with nothing to guide the judges but their own words and their own looks, and who can doubt but the dishonest man would be chosen rather than the honest? Honesty goes about with a hangdog look about him, as though knowing that he cannot be trusted till he be proved. Dishonesty carries his eyes high, and assumes that any question respecting him must be considered to be unnecessary.”
“Oh, Frank, what a philosopher you are.”
“Well, yes; meditating about your diamonds has brought my philosophy out. When do you think you will go to Scotland?”
“I am hardly strong enough for the journey yet. I fear the cold so much.”
“You would not find it cold there by the seaside. To tell you the truth, Lizzie, I want to get you out of this house. I don’t mean to say a word against Mrs. Carbuncle; but after all that has occurred, it would be better that you should be away. People talk about you and Lord George.”
“How can I help it, Frank?”
“By going away;—that is, if I may presume one thing. I don’t want to pry into your secrets.”
“I have none from you.”
“Unless there be truth in the assertion that you are engaged to marry Lord George Carruthers.”
“There is no truth in it.”
“And you do not wish to stay here in order that there may be an engagement? I am obliged to ask you home questions, Lizzie, as I could not otherwise advise you.”
“You do, indeed, ask home questions.”
“I will desist at once, if they be disagreeable.”
“Frank, you are false to me!” As she said this she rose in her bed, and sat with her eyes fixed upon his, and her thin hands stretched out upon the bedclothes. “You know that I cannot wish to be engaged to him or to any other man. You know, better almost than I can know myself, how my heart stands. There has, at any rate, been no hypocrisy with me in regard to you. Everything has been told to you;—at what cost I will not now say. The honest woman, I fear, fares worse even than the honest man of whom you spoke. I think you admitted that he would be appreciated at last. She to her dying day must pay the penalty of her transgressions. Honesty in a woman the world never forgives.” When she had done speaking, he sat silent by her bedside, but, almost unconsciously, he stretched out his left hand and took her right hand in his. For a few seconds she admitted this, and she lay there with their hands clasped. Then with a start she drew back her arm, and retreated as it were from his touch. “How dare you,” she said, “press my hand, when you know that such pressure from you is treacherous and damnable!”
“Damnable, Lizzie!”
“Yes;—damnable. I will not pick my words for you. Coming from you, what does such pressure mean?”
“Affection.”
“Yes;—and of what sort? You are wicked enough to feed my love by such tokens, when you know that you do not mean to return it. Oh, Frank, Frank, will you give me back my heart? What was it that you promised me when we sat together upon the rocks at Portray?”
It is inexpressibly difficult for a man to refuse the tender of a woman’s love. We may almost say that a man should do so as a matter of course—that the thing so offered becomes absolutely valueless by the offer—that the woman who can make it has put herself out of court by her own abandonment of the privileges due to her as a woman—that stern rebuke and even expressed contempt are justified by such conduct—and that the fairest beauty and most alluring charms of feminine grace should lose their attraction when thus tendered openly in the market. No doubt such is our theory as to love and lovemaking. But the action to be taken by us in matters as to which the plainest theory prevails for the guidance of our practice, depends so frequently on accompanying circumstances and correlative issues, that the theory, as often as not, falls to the ground. Frank could not despise this woman, and could not be stern to her. He could not bring himself to tell her boldly that he would have nothing to say to her in the way of love. He made excuses for her, and persuaded himself that there were peculiar circumstances in her position justifying unwomanly conduct, although, had he examined himself on the subject, he would have found it difficult to say what those circumstances were. She was rich, beautiful, clever—and he was flattered. Nevertheless he knew that he could not marry her;—and he knew also that much as he liked her he did not love her. “Lizzie,” he said, “I think you hardly understand my position.”
“Yes, I do. That little girl has cozened you out of a promise.”
“If it be so, you would not have me break it.”
“Yes, I would, if you think she is not fit to be your wife. Is a man such as you are, to be tied by the leg for
