Clara Van Siever was a young woman whose presence of mind rarely deserted her. It occurred to her now that she must undergo on some occasion the nuisance of a direct offer from this man, and that she could have no better opportunity of answering him after her own fashion than the present. Her mother was absent, and the field was her own. And, moreover, it was a point in her favour that the tragedy which had so lately occurred, and to which she had just now alluded, would give her a fair excuse for additional severity. At such a moment no man could, she told herself, be justified in making an offer of his love, and therefore she might rebuke him with the less remorse. I wonder whether the last words which Conway Dalrymple had spoken to her stung her conscience as she thought of this! She had now reached the door, and was standing close to it. As Mr. Musselboro did not at once begin, she encouraged him. “If you have anything special to tell me, of course I will hear you,” she said.
“Miss Clara,” he began, rising from his chair, and coming into the middle of the room, “I think you know what my wishes are.” Then he put his hand upon his heart. “And your respected mother is the same way of thinking. It’s that that emboldens me to be so sudden. Not but what my heart has been yours and yours only all along, before the old lady so much as mentioned it.” Clara would give him no assistance, not even the aid of a negative, but stood there quite passive, with her hand on the door. “Since I first had the pleasure of seeing you I have always said to myself, ‘Augustus Musselboro, that is the woman for you, if you can only win her.’ But then there was so much against me—wasn’t there?” She would not even take advantage of this by assuring him that there certainly always had been much against him, but allowed him to go on till he should run out all the length of his tether. “I mean, of course, in the way of money,” he continued. “I hadn’t much that I could call my own when your respected mamma first allowed me to become acquainted with you. But it’s different now; and I think I may say that I’m all right in that respect. Poor Broughton’s going in this way will make it a deal smoother to me; and I may say that I and your mamma will be all in all to each other now about money.” Then he stopped.
“I don’t quite understand what you mean by all this,” said Clara.
“I mean that there isn’t a more devoted fellow in all London than what I am to you.” Then he was about to go down on one knee, but it occurred to him that it would not be convenient to kneel to a lady who would stand quite close to the door. “One and one, if they’re put together well, will often make more than two, and so they shall with us,” said Musselboro, who began to feel that it might be expedient to throw a little spirit into his words.
“If you have done,” said Clara, “you may as well hear me for a minute. And I hope you will have sense to understand that I really mean what I say.”
“I hope you will remember what are your mamma’s wishes.”
“Mamma’s wishes have no influence whatsoever with me in such matters as this. Mamma’s arrangements with you are for her own convenience, and I am not a party to them. I do not know anything about mamma’s money, and I do not want to know. But under no possible circumstances will I consent to become your wife. Nothing that mamma could say or do would induce me even to think of it. I hope you will be man enough to take this for an answer, and say nothing more about it.”
“But, Miss Clara—”
“It’s no good your Miss Claraing me, sir. What I have said you may be sure I mean. Good morning, sir.” Then she opened the door, and left him.
“By Jove, she is a Tartar,” said Musselboro to himself, when he was alone. “They’re both Tartars, but the younger is the worse.” Then he began to speculate whether Fortune was not doing the best for him in so arranging that he might have the use of the Tartar-mother’s money without binding himself to endure for life the Tartar qualities of the daughter.
It had been understood that Clara was to wait at home till her mother should return before she again went across to Mrs. Broughton. At about eleven Mrs. Van Siever came in, and her daughter intercepted her at the dining-room door before she had made her way upstairs to Mr. Musselboro. “How is she, mamma?” said Clara with something of hypocrisy in her assumed interest for Mrs. Broughton.
“She is an idiot,” said Mrs. Van Siever.
“She has had a terrible misfortune!”
“That is no reason why she should be an idiot; and she is heartless too. She never cared a bit for him;—not a bit.”
“He was a man whom it was impossible to care for much. I will go to her now, mamma.”
“Where is Musselboro?”
“He is upstairs.”
“Well?”
“Mamma, that is quite out of the question. Quite. I would not marry him to save myself from starving.”
“You do not know what starving is yet, my dear. Tell me the truth at once. Are you engaged to that painter?” Clara paused a moment before she answered, not hesitating as to the expediency of telling her mother any truth on the matter in question, but doubting what the truth might really be. Could she say that she was engaged to Mr. Dalrymple, or could she say that she was not? “If you tell me a lie, miss, I’ll have you put out of the house.”
“I
