“Who gave you this paper-cutter?” he said, suddenly.
“Goodness me, why do you ask? and especially, why do you ask in that way?”
“I asked simply because if it is a present to you from anyone, I will take up something else.”
“It was given me by Mr. Grey.”
He let it drop from his fingers on to the table with a noise, and then pushed it from him, so that it fell on the other side, near to where she sat.
“George,” she said, as she stooped and picked it up, “your violence is unreasonable; pray do not repeat it.”
“I did not mean it,” he said, “and I beg your pardon. I was simply unfortunate in the article I selected. And who gave you this?” In saying which he took up a little ivory foot-rule that was folded up so as to bring it within the compass of three inches.
“It so happens that no one gave me that; I bought it at a stupid bazaar.”
“Then this will do. You shall give it me as a present, on the renewal of our love.”
“It is too poor a thing to give,” said she, speaking still more gloomily than she had done before.
“By no means; nothing is too poor, if given in that way. Anything will do; a ribbon, a glove, a broken sixpence. Will you give me something that I may take, and, taking it, may know that your heart is given with it?”
“Take the rule, if you please,” she said.
“And about the heart?” he asked.
He should have been more of a rascal or less. Seeing how very much of a rascal he was already, I think it would have been better that he should have been more—that he should have been able to content his spirit with the simple acquisition of her money, and that he should have been free from all those remains of a finer feeling which made him desire her love also. But it was not so. It was necessary for his comfort that she should, at any rate, say she loved him. “Well, Alice, and what about the heart?” he asked again.
“I would so much rather talk about politics, George,” said she.
The cicatrice began to make itself very visible in his face, and the debonair manner was fast vanishing. He had fixed his eyes upon her, and had inserted his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat.
“Alice, that is not quite fair,” he said.
“I do not mean to be unfair.”
“I am not so sure of that. I almost think that you do mean it. You have told me that you intend to become my wife. If, after that, you wilfully make me miserable, will not that be unfair?”
“I am not making you miserable—certainly not wilfully.”
“Did that letter which you wrote to me from Westmoreland mean anything?”
“George, do not strive to make me think that it meant too much.”
“If it did, you had better say so at once.”
But Alice, though she would have said so had she dared, made no answer to this. She sat silent, turning her face away from his gaze, longing that the meeting might be over, and feeling that she had lost her own self-respect.
“Look here, Alice,” he said, “I find it very hard to understand you. When I look back over all that has passed between us, and to that other episode in your life, summing it all up with your conduct to me at present, I find myself at a loss to read your character.”
“I fear I cannot help you in the reading of it.”
“When you first loved me;—for you did love me. I understood that well enough. There is no young man who in early life does not read with sufficient clearness that sweetest morsel of poetry.—And when you quarrelled with me, judging somewhat harshly of my offences, I understood that also; for it is the custom of women to be hard in their judgement on such sins. When I heard that you had accepted the offer made to you by that gentleman in Cambridgeshire, I thought that I understood you still—knowing how natural it was that you should seek some cure for your wound. I understood it, and accused myself, not you, in that I had driven you to so fatal a remedy.” Here Alice turned round towards him sharply, as though she were going to interrupt him, but she said nothing, though he paused for her to speak; and then he went on. “And I understood it well when I heard that this cure had been too much for you. By heavens, yes! there was no misunderstanding that. I meant no insult to the man when I upset his little toy just now. I have not a word to say against him. For many women he would make a model husband, but you are not one of them. And when you discovered this yourself, as you did, I understood that without difficulty. Yes, by heavens! if ever woman had been driven to a mistake, you had been driven to one there.” Here she looked at him again, and met his eyes. She looked at him with something of his own fierceness in her face, as though she were preparing herself to fight with him; but she said nothing at the moment, and then he again went on. “And, Alice, I understood it also when you again consented to be my wife. I thought that I still understood you then. I may have been vain to think so, but surely it was natural. I believed that the old love had come back upon you, and again warmed your heart. I thought that it had been cold during our separation, and I was pleased to think so. Was that unnatural? Put yourself in my place, and say if you would not have thought so. I told myself that
