“It is unkind of you to say that, and ungrateful. I would do anything on earth in my power to help you.”
“Nevertheless you are a tempter.”
“I know how it ought to have been,” she said, in a low voice. “I know very well how it ought to have been. I should have kept myself free till that time when we met on the braes of Loughlinter, and then all would have been well with us.”
“I do not know how that might have been,” said Phineas, hoarsely.
“You do not know! But I know. Of course you have stabbed me with a thousand daggers when you have told me from time to time of your love for Violet. You have been very cruel—needlessly cruel. Men are so cruel! But for all that I have known that I could have kept you—had it not been too late when you spoke to me. Will you not own as much as that?”
“Of course you would have been everything to me. I should never have thought of Violet then.”
“That is the only kind word you have said to me from that day to this. I try to comfort myself in thinking that it would have been so. But all that is past and gone, and done. I have had my romance and you have had yours. As you are a man, it is natural that you should have been disturbed by a double image;—it is not so with me.”
“And yet you can advise me to offer marriage to a woman—a woman whom I am to seek merely because she is rich?”
“Yes;—I do so advise you. You have had your romance and must now put up with reality. Why should I so advise you but for the interest that I have in you? Your prosperity will do me no good. I shall not even be here to see it. I shall hear of it only as so many a woman banished out of England hears a distant misunderstood report of what is going on in the country she has left. But I still have regard enough—I will be bold, and, knowing that you will not take it amiss, will say love enough for you—to feel a desire that you should not be shipwrecked. Since we first took you in hand between us, Barrington and I, I have never swerved in my anxiety on your behalf. When I resolved that it would be better for us both that we should be only friends, I did not swerve. When you would talk to me so cruelly of your love for Violet, I did not swerve. When I warned you from Loughlinter because I thought there was danger, I did not swerve. When I bade you not to come to me in London because of my husband, I did not swerve. When my father was hard upon you, I did not swerve then. I would not leave him till he was softened. When you tried to rob Oswald of his love, and I thought you would succeed—for I did think so—I did not swerve. I have ever been true to you. And now that I must hide myself and go away, and be seen no more, I am true still.”
“Laura—dearest Laura!” he exclaimed.
“Ah, no!” she said, speaking with no touch of anger, but all in sorrow;—“it must not be like that. There is no room for that. Nor do you mean it. I do not think so ill of you. But there may not be even words of affection between us—only such as I may speak to make you know that I am your friend.”
“You are my friend,” he said, stretching out his hand to her as he turned away his face. “You are my friend, indeed.”
“Then do as I would have you do.”
He put his hand into his pocket, and had the letter between his fingers with the purport of showing it to her. But at the moment the thought occurred to him that were he to do so, then, indeed, he would be bound forever. He knew that he was bound forever—bound forever to his own Mary; but he desired to have the privilege of thinking over such bondage once more before he proclaimed it even to his dearest friend. He had told her that she tempted him, and she stood before him now as a temptress. But lest it might be possible that she should not tempt in vain—that letter in his pocket must never be shown to her. In that case Lady Laura must never hear from his lips the name of Mary Flood Jones.
He left her without any assured purpose;—without, that is, the assurance to her of any fixed purpose. There yet wanted a week to the day on which Mr. Monk’s bill was to be read—or not to be read—the second time; and he had still that interval before he need decide. He went to his club, and before he dined he strove to write a line to Mary;—but when he had the paper before him he found that it was impossible to do so. Though he did not even suspect himself of an intention to be false, the idea that was in his mind made the effort too much for him. He put the paper away from him and went down and eat his dinner.
It was a Saturday, and there was no House in the evening. He had remained in Portman Square with Lady Laura till near seven o’clock, and was engaged to go out in the evening to a gathering at Mrs. Gresham’s house. Everybody in London would be there, and Phineas was resolved that as long as he remained in London he would be seen at places where everybody was seen. He would certainly be at Mrs. Gresham’s gathering; but there was an
