“I am afraid, Miss Dale, you will think me very impertinent,” said Mrs. Arabin.
“I am sure I shall not think that,” said Lily.
“I believe you knew, before Mr. Eames started, that he was going to Italy to find me and my husband?” said Mrs. Arabin. Then Lily put Mr. Crosbie altogether out of her head, and became aware that he was not to be the subject of the coming conversation. She was almost sorry that it was so. There was no doubt in her mind as to what she would have said to anyone who might have taken up Crosbie’s cause. On that matter she could now have given a very decisive answer in a few words. But on that other matter she was much more in doubt. She remembered, however, every word of the note she had received from M. D. She remembered also the words of John’s note to that young woman. And her heart was still hard against him.
“Yes,” she said; “Mr. Eames came here one night and told us why he was going. I was very glad that he was going, because I thought it was right.”
“You know, of course, how successful he has been? It was I who gave the cheque to Mr. Crawley.”
“So Mrs. Thorne has heard. Dr. Thorne has written to tell her the whole story.”
“And now I’ve come to look for Mr. Eames’s reward.”
“His reward, Mrs. Arabin?”
“Yes; or rather to plead for him. You will not, I hope, be angry with him because he has told me much of his history while we were travelling home alone together.”
“Oh, no,” said Lily, smiling. “How could he have chosen a better friend in whom to trust?”
“He could certainly have chosen none who would take his part more sincerely. He is so good and so amiable! He is so pleasant in his ways, and so fitted to make a woman happy! And then, Miss Dale, he is also so devoted!”
“He is an old friend of ours, Mrs. Arabin.”
“So he has told me.”
“And we all of us love him dearly. Mamma is very much attached to him.”
“Unless he flatters himself, there is no one belonging to you who would not wish that he should be nearer and dearer still.”
“It may be so. I do not say that it is not so. Mamma and my uncle are both fond of him.”
“And does not that go a long way?” said Mrs. Arabin.
“It ought not to do so,” said Lily. “It ought not to go any way at all.”
“Ought it not? It seems to me that I could never have brought myself to marry anyone whom my old friends had not liked.”
“Ah! that is another thing.”
“But is it not a recommendation to a man that he has been so successful with your friends as to make them all feel that you might trust yourself to him with perfect safety?” To this Lily made no answer, and Mrs. Arabin went on to plead her friend’s cause with all the eloquence she could use, insisting on all his virtues, his good temper, his kindness, his constancy—and not forgetting the fact that the world was inclined to use him very well. Still Lily made no answer. She had promised Mrs. Arabin that she would not regard her interference as impertinent, and therefore she refrained from any word that might seem to show offence. Nor did she feel offence. It was something gained by John Eames in Lily’s estimation that he should have such a friend as Mrs. Arabin to take an interest in his welfare. But there was a self-dependence, perhaps one may call it an obstinacy about Lily Dale, which made her determined that she would not be driven hither or thither by any pressure from without. Why had John Eames, at the very moment when he should have been doing his best to drive from her breast the memory of past follies—when he would have striven to do so had he really been earnest in his suit—why at such a moment had he allowed himself to correspond in terms of affection with such a woman as this M. D.? While Mrs. Arabin was pleading for John Eames, Lily was repeating to herself certain words which John had written to the woman—“Ever and always yours unalterably.” Such were not the exact words, but such was the form in which Lily, dishonestly, chose to repeat them to herself. And why was it so with her? In the old days she would have forgiven Crosbie any offence at a word or a look—any possible letter to any M. D., let her have been ever so abominable! Nay—had she not even forgiven him the offence of deserting herself altogether on behalf of a woman as detestable as could be any M. D. of Johnny’s choosing;—a woman whose only recommendation had been her title? And yet she would not forgive John Eames, though the evidence against him was of so flimsy a nature—but rather strove to turn the flimsiness of that evidence into strength! Why was it so? Unheroic as he might be, John Eames was surely a better man and a bigger man than Adolphus Crosbie. It was simply this;—she had fallen in love with the one, and had never fallen in love with the other! She had fallen in love with the one man, though in her simple way she had made a struggle against such feeling; and she had not come to love the other man, though she had told herself that it would be well that she should do so if it were possible. Again and again she had half declared to herself that she would take him as her husband and leave the love to come afterwards; but when the moment came for doing so, she could not do it.
“May I not say a word of comfort to him?”
