Nothing was said for some minutes after Kate’s departure, and Alice was beginning to shake from her that half feeling of danger which had come over her. Vavasor had sat back in his chair, leaning against the house, with his feet raised upon a stool; his arms were folded across his breast, and he seemed to have divided himself between his thoughts and his cigar. Alice was looking full upon the river, and her thoughts had strayed away to her future home among John Grey’s flowerbeds and shrubs; but the river, though it sang to her pleasantly, seemed to sing a song of other things than such a home as that—a song full of mystery, as are all river songs when one tries to understand their words.
“When are you to be married, Alice?” said George at last.
“Oh, George!” said she. “You ask me a question as though you were putting a pistol to my ear.”
“I’m sorry the question was so unpleasant.”
“I didn’t say that it was unpleasant; but you asked it so suddenly! The truth is, I didn’t expect you to speak at all just then. I suppose I was thinking of something.”
“But if it be not unpleasant—when are you to be married?”
“I do not know. It is not fixed.”
“But about when, I mean? This summer?”
“Certainly not this summer, for the summer will be over when we reach home.”
“This winter? Next spring? Next year?—or in ten years’ time?”
“Before the expiration of the ten years, I suppose. Anything more exact than that I can’t say.”
“I suppose you like it?” he then said.
“What, being married? You see I’ve never tried yet.”
“The idea of it—the anticipation. You look forward with satisfaction to the kind of life you will lead at Nethercoats? Don’t suppose I am saying anything against it, for I have no conception what sort of a place Nethercoats is. On the whole I don’t know that there is any kind of life better than that of an English country gentleman in his own place;—that is, if he can keep it up, and not live as the old squire does, in a state of chronic poverty.”
“Mr. Grey’s place doesn’t entitle him to be called a country gentleman.”
“But you like the prospect of it?”
“Oh, George, how you do cross-question one! Of course I like it, or I shouldn’t have accepted it.”
“That does not follow. But I quite acknowledge that I have no right to cross-question you. If I ever had such right on the score of cousinship, I have lost it on the score of—; but we won’t mind that, will we, Alice?” To this she at first made no answer, but he repeated the question. “Will we, Alice?”
“Will we what?”
“Recur to the old days.”
“Why should we recur to them? They are passed, and as we are again friends and dear cousins the sting of them is gone.”
“Ah, yes! The sting of them is gone. It is for that reason, because it is so, that we may at last recur to them without danger. If we regret nothing—if neither of us has anything to regret, why not recur to them, and talk of them freely?”
“No, George; that would not do.”
“By heavens, no! It would drive me mad; and if I know aught of you, it would hardly leave you as calm as you are at present.”
“As I would wish to be left calm—”
“Would you? Then I suppose I ought to hold my tongue. But, Alice, I shall never have the power of speaking to you again as I speak now. Since we have been out together, we have been dear friends; is it not so?”
“And shall we not always be dear friends?”
“No, certainly not. How will it be possible? Think of it. How can I really be your friend when you are the mistress of that man’s house in Cambridgeshire?”
“George!”
“I mean nothing disrespectful. I truly beg your pardon if it has seemed so. Let me say that gentleman’s house;—for he is a gentleman.”
“That he certainly is.”
“You could not have accepted him were he not so. But how can I be your friend when you are his wife? I may still call you cousin Alice, and pat your children on the head if I chance to see them; and shall stop in the streets and shake hands with him if I meet him;—that is if my untoward fate does not induce him to cut my acquaintance;—but as for friendship, that will be over when you and I shall have parted next Thursday evening at London Bridge.”
“Oh, George, don’t say so!”
“But I do.”
“And why on Thursday? Do you mean that you won’t come to Queen Anne Street any more?”
“Yes, that is what I do mean. This trip of ours has been very successful, Kate says. Perhaps Kate knows nothing about it.”
“It has been very pleasant—at least to me.”
“And the pleasure has had no drawback?”
“None to me.”
“It has been very pleasant to me, also;—but the pleasure has had its alloy. Alice, I have nothing to ask from you—nothing.”
“Anything that you should ask, I would do for you.”
“I have nothing to ask;—nothing. But I have one word to say.”
“George, do not say it. Let me go upstairs. Let me go
