“Oh, trust them for that,” said Rintoul, with a laugh. “Of course it is said of everybody. It will be said of you just the same; we can’t help that. But surely you can see yourself—even you can see—that when a fellow like Millefleurs actually puts himself out of the way to come after a girl like Edith—”
“Robin!” cried his mother (a little accès of passion seized her). “Do you think Edith—Edith, your sister—is not worth a hundred boys like this Millefleurs? What do you mean by coming out of his way? Is it the fashion now that girls like Edith should put themselves at the disposal of a little jackanapes—a bit of a boy—a—”
“Don’t lose your temper, mamma,” said the young man, with a laugh. “But now you’ve had it out,” said this wise son, “only just be reasonable, and think a moment. Millefleurs is a great catch. There’s not such a big fish to be landed anywhere; and Edith is no better than a hundred others. Do hear a fellow out. She’s very pretty and nice, and all that; but there’s heaps of pretty, nice girls—and the prettier they are, and the nicer they are, the less they have a penny to bless themselves with,” he added, in a regretful parenthesis. “There’s a hundred of them, and there’s only one of him. Of course he knows that well enough. Of course he knows it’s a great thing when he lets a girl see that he admires her; and if her people are such fools as to let him slip through their fingers for want of a little trouble—why, then, they deserve to lose their chance—and that’s all I can say,” Rintoul said.
Once more Lady Lindores was silenced. What was the use of saying anything? Indignation was out of place, or anything that she could say of love profaned and marriage desecrated. To speak of the only foundation of a true union to this world-instructed boy—what would be the use of it? She swallowed down as best she could the bitterness, the pain, the disappointment and contempt, which it is anguish to feel in such a case. After a while she said with a smile, commanding herself, “And you, Robin, who are so clever as to know all this, are you too a catch, my poor boy? are you pursued by mothers, and competed for by girls?—not, of course, to the same extent as Lord Millefleurs—I recognise the difference; but something, I suppose, in the same way?”
“Well,” said Rintoul, caressing his moustache, “not to the same extent, as you say, and not in the same way perhaps. I’m nobody, of course, when Millefleurs is there; but still, you know, when there’s no Millefleurs on the horizon—why, one has one’s value, mother. It’s an old title, for one thing, and Scotch estates, which people think better than they are, perhaps. They don’t throw heiresses at my head; but still, you know, in a general way—”
As he sat stroking that moustache which was not very mature yet, but rather young and scanty for its age, with a little smile of subdued vanity about his mouth, and a careless air of making light of his advantages, what woman could have helped laughing? But when a mother laughs at her boy, the ridicule hurts more than it amuses her. “I see,” she said. “Then don’t you think, Robin, you who are so clear-sighted, that this young man will see through our attentions, if we pay him attention, and laugh at our efforts to—catch him (that’s the word, is it?), as much as you do yourself?”
“All right,” said Rintoul; “so he will, of course; but what does that matter when a fellow takes a fancy into his head? Of course he knows you will want to catch him if you can—that stands to reason—everybody wants to catch him; but if he likes Edith, he will never mind that—if he likes Edith—”
“Robin, hold your tongue,” cried his mother, almost violently. She felt that she could have boxed his ears in the heat of her displeasure. “I will not hear your sister’s name bandied about so. You disgust me—you horrify me—you make me ill to hear you! My son! and you venture to speak of your sister so!”
Rintoul, arrested in his speech, stared for a moment open-mouthed; and then he shook his head with a look of impatient toleration, and uttered a weary sigh. “If you will not hear reason, of course it’s in vain my arguing with you,” he said.
These several encounters, and the heavy thought of what might be to come soon, took away all the gloss of pleasure that had been upon Lady Lindores’s first entrance into society. She thought, indeed, there had never been any pleasure at all in it; but this was an unintentional self-deception. She thought that Carry’s pale image had come between her and every lighter emotion. She did not herself know how natural she was—her mood changing, her heart rising in spite of herself, a bright day, a pleasant company, the consciousness of being approved, and even admired, giving her some moments of gratification in spite of all; but after these discussions, she was so twisted and turned the wrong way, so irritated and disenchanted by her husband and son, that she felt herself sick and disgusted with London and all the world. If she could but get home! but yet at home there was poor Carry, who would ask after everything, and from whom it would be so difficult to conceal the reappearance of her old lover: if she had but wings like a dove!—but oh, whither to go
