“Father,” she said, somewhat breathless, collecting herself with a little effort. The wave of hot colour died off from her face. She grew paler and paler as she stood firmly opposite to him, holding fast with her hand the cool marble of the mantelpiece, which felt like a support. “Father, if he had come to me, as he ought to have done, this is what would have happened—I should have told him at once that it was a mistake, and he would have left us quietly without giving you any trouble. How much better that would have been in every way!”
“I don’t understand you, Edith. A mistake? I don’t see that there is any mistake.”
“That is very likely, papa,” she said, with returning spirit, “since it is not you that are concerned. But I see it. I should have told him quietly, and there would have been an end of the matter, if he had not been so formal, so absurd—so old-fashioned—as to appeal to you.”
This counterblast took away Lord Lindores’s breath. He made a pause for a moment, and stared at her; he had never been so treated before. “Old-fashioned,” he repeated, almost with bewilderment. “There is enough of this, Edith. If you wish to take up the role of the advanced young lady, I must tell you it is not either suitable or becoming. Millefleurs will, no doubt, find an early opportunity of making his own explanations to you, and of course, if you choose to keep him in hot water, it is, I suppose, your right. But don’t carry it too far. The connection is one that is perfectly desirable—excellent in every point of view.”
“It is a pity, since you think so, that it is impossible,” she said in a low tone.
Lord Lindores looked at her, fixing her with his eye. He felt now that he had known it all along—that he had felt sure there was a struggle before him, and that his only policy was to convince her that he was determined from the very first. “There is nothing impossible,” he said, “except disobedience and folly. I don’t expect these from you. Indeed I can’t imagine what motive you can have, except a momentary perverseness, to answer me so. No more of it, Edith. By tomorrow, at least, everything will be settled between you and your lover—”
“Oh, papa, listen! don’t mistake me,” she cried. “He is not my lover. How can you—how can you use such a word? He can never be anything to me. If he had spoken to me, I could have settled it all in a moment. As it is you he has spoken to, why give him a double mortification? It will be so easy for you to tell him: to tell him—he can never be anything to me.”
“Edith, take care what you are saying! He is to be your husband. I am not a man easily balked in my own family.”
“We all know that,” she cried, with bitterness; “but I am not Carry, papa.”
He made a step nearer to her, with a threatening aspect. “What do you mean by that? Carry! What has Carry to do with it? You have a chance poor Carry never had—high rank, wealth—everything that is desirable: and a man whom the most fantastic could not object in any way to.”
There is scarcely any situation in the world into which a gleam of ridicule will not fall. It takes us with the tear in our eye—it took Edith in the nervous excitement of this struggle, the most trying moment which personally she had ever gone through. Millefleurs, with his little plump person, his round eyes, his soft lisp of a voice, seemed to come suddenly before her, and at the height of this half-tragical contention she laughed. It was excitement and high pressure as well as that sudden flash of perverse imagination. She could have cried next moment—but laugh she did, in spite of herself. The sound drove Lord Lindores to fury. “This is beyond bearing,” he cried. “It seems that I have been deceived in you altogether. If you cannot feel the honour that has been done you—the compliment that has been paid you—you are unworthy of it, and of the trouble I have taken.”
“I suppose,” said Edith, irritated too, “these are the right words for a girl to use to any man who is so good as to think she would suit him. I was wrong to laugh, but are not you going too far, papa? I am likely to get more annoyance by it than honour. Please, please let me take my own way.”
She had broken down a little when she said this, in natural reaction, and gave him a pitiful look, with a little quiver of her lip. After such a laugh it is so likely that a girl will cry, as after a sudden self-assertion it is to be expected that she will be subdued and humbled. She looked at him with a childlike appeal for pity. And he thought that now he had her securely in his hands.
“My love,” he said, “you will regret it all your life if I yield to you now. It is your happiness I am thinking of. I cannot let a girl’s folly spoil your career. Besides, it is of the highest importance to everybody—to Rintoul, even to myself—that you should marry Millefleurs—”
“I am very sorry, papa; but I shall never—marry Lord Millefleurs—”
“Folly! I shall not allow you to trifle with him, Edith—or with me. You have given him the most evident encouragement—led him on in every way, invited him here—”
Edith grew pale to her very lips. “Papa, have pity on me! I never did so; it was all nothing—the way one talks without meaning
