The letter-bag lay in the hall, and Nina went down at once and deposited her letter in it; this done, she lay down on her bed, not to sleep, but to think over Donogan and his letter till daybreak.
CHAPTER Lx.x.xII
THE BREAKFAST-ROOM
"Strange house this," said Joseph Atlee, as Nina entered the room the next morning where he sat alone at breakfast. "Lord Kilgobbin and d.i.c.k were here a moment ago, and disappeared suddenly; Miss Kearney for an instant, and also left as abruptly; and now you have come, I most earnestly hope not to fly away in the same fashion."
"No; I mean to eat my breakfast, and so far to keep you company."
"I thank the tea-urn for my good fortune," said he solemnly.
"A _tete-a-tete_ with Mr. Atlee is a piece of good-luck," said Nina, as she sat down. "Has anything occurred to call our hosts away?"
"In a house like this," said he jocularly, "where people are marrying or giving in marriage at every turn, what may not happen? It may be a question of the settlement, or the bridecake, or white satin "slip"--if that"s the name for it--the orange-flowers, or the choice of the best man--who knows?"
"You seem to know the whole bead-roll of wedding incidents."
"It is a dull _repertoire_ after all, for whether the piece be melodrama, farce, genteel comedy, or harrowing tragedy, it has to be played by the same actors."
"What would you have--marriages cannot be all alike. There must be many marriages for things besides love: for ambition, for interest, for money, for convenience."
"Convenience is exactly the phrase I wanted and could not catch."
"It is not the word _I_ wanted, nor do I think we mean the same thing by it."
"What I mean is this," said Atlee, with a firm voice, "that when a young girl has decided in her own mind that she has had enough of that social bondage of the daughter, and cannot marry the man she would like, she will marry the man that she can."
"And like him too," added Nina, with a strange, dubious sort of smile.
"Yes, and like him too; for there is a curious feature in the woman"s nature that, without any falsehood or disloyalty, permits her to like different people in different ways, so that the quiet, gentle, almost impa.s.sive woman might, if differently mated, have been a being of fervid temper, headstrong and pa.s.sionate. If it were not for this species of accommodation, marriage would be a worse thing than it is."
"I never suspected you of having made a study of the subject. Since when have you devoted your attention to the theme?"
"I could answer in the words of Wilkes--since I have had the honour to know your Royal Highness; but perhaps you might be displeased with the flippancy."
"I should think that very probable," said she gravely.
"Don"t look so serious. Remember that I did not commit myself after all."
"I thought it was possible to discuss this problem without a personality."
"Don"t you know that, let one deal in abstractions as long as he will, he is only skirmishing around special instances. It is out of what I glean from individuals I make up my generalities."
"Am I to understand by this that I have supplied you with the material of one of these reflections?"
"You have given me the subject of many. If I were to tell you how often I have thought of you, I could not answer for the words in which I might tell it."
"Do not tell it, then."
"I know--I am aware--I have heard since I came here that there is a special reason why you could not listen to me."
"And being so, why do you propose that I should hear you?"
"I will tell you," said he, with an earnestness that almost startled her: "I will tell you, because there are things on which a doubt or an equivocation are actually maddening; and I will not, I cannot, believe that you have accepted Cecil Walpole."
"Will you please to say why it should seem so incredible?"
"Because I have seen you not merely in admiration, and that admiration would be better conveyed by a stronger word; and because I have measured you with others infinitely beneath you in every way, and who are yet soaring into very high regions indeed; because I have learned enough of the world to know that alongside of--often above--the influence that men are wielding in life by their genius and their capacity, there is another power exercised by women of marvellous beauty, of infinite attractions, and exquisite grace, which sways and moulds the fate of mankind far more than Cabinets and Councils. There are not above half a dozen of these in Europe, and you might be one added to the number."
"Even admitting all this--and I don"t see that I should go so far--it is no answer to my question."
"Must I then say there can be no--not companionship, that"s not the word; no, I must take the French expression, and call it _solidarite_--there can be no _solidarite_ of interests, of objects, of pa.s.sions, or of hopes, between people so widely dissevered as you and Walpole. I am so convinced of this, that still I can dare to declare I cannot believe you could marry him."
"And if I were to tell you it were true?"
"I should still regard it as a pa.s.sing caprice, that the mere mention of to-morrow would offend you. It is no disparagement of Walpole to say he is unworthy of you, for who would be worthy? but the presumption of his daring is enough to excite indignation--at least, I feel it such. How he could dare to link his supreme littleness with consummate perfection; to freight the miserable barque of his fortunes with so precious a cargo; to encounter the feeling--and there is no escape for it--"I must drag that woman down, not alone into obscurity, but into all the sordid meanness of a small condition, that never can emerge into anything better." He cannot disguise from himself that it is not within his reach to attain power, or place, or high consideration. Such men make no name in life; they leave no mark on their time. They are heaven-born subordinates, and never refute their destiny. Does a woman with ambition--does a woman conscious of her own great merits--condescend to ally herself, not alone with small fortune--that might be borne--but with the smaller a.s.sociations that make up these men"s lives? with the peddling efforts to mount even one rung higher of that crazy little ladder of their ambition--to be a clerk of another grade--a creature of some fifty pounds more--a being in an upper office?"
"And the prince--for he ought to be at least a prince who should make me the offer of his name--whence is he to come, Mr. Atlee?"
"There are men who are not born to princely station, who by their genius and their determination are just as sure to become famous, and who need but the glorious prize of such a woman"s love--No, no, don"t treat what I say as rant and rodomontade; these are words of sober sense and seriousness."
"Indeed!" said she, with a faint sigh. "So that it really amounts to this--that I shall actually have missed my whole fortune in life--thrown myself away--all because I would not wait for Mr. Atlee to propose to me."
Nothing less than Atlee"s marvellous a.s.surance and self-possession could have sustained this speech unabashed.
"You have only said what my heart has told me many a day since."
"But you seem to forget," added she, with a very faint curl of scorn on her lip, "that I had no more to guide me to the discovery of Mr. Atlee"s affection than that of his future greatness. Indeed, I could more readily believe in the latter than the former."
"Believe in both," cried he warmly. "If I have conquered difficulties in life, if I have achieved some successes--now for a pa.s.sing triumph, now for a moment of gratified vanity, now for a mere caprice--try me by a mere hope--I only plead for a hope--try me by hope of being one day worthy of calling that hand my own."
As he spoke, he tried to grasp her hand; but she withdrew it coldly and slowly, saying, "I have no fancy to make myself the prize of any success in life, political or literary; nor can I believe that the man who reasons in this fashion has any really high ambition. Mr. Atlee," added she, more gravely, "your memory may not be as good as mine, and you will pardon me if I remind you that, almost at our first meeting, we struck up a sort of friendship, on the very equivocal ground of a common country. We agreed that each of us claimed for their native land the mythical Bohemia, and we agreed, besides, that the natives of that country are admirable colleagues, but not good partners."
"You are not quite fair in this," he began; but before he could say more d.i.c.k Kearney entered hurriedly, and cried out, "It"s all true. The people are in wild excitement, and all declare that they will not let him be taken. Oh! I forgot," added he. "You were not here when my father and I were called away by the despatch from the police-station, to say that Donogan has been seen at Moate, and is about to hold a meeting on the bog.
Of course, this is mere rumour; but the constabulary are determined to capture him, and Curtis has written to inform my father that a party of police will patrol the grounds here this evening."
"And if they should take him, what would happen--to him, I mean?" asked Nina coldly.
"An escaped convict is usually condemned to death; but I suppose they would not hang him," said d.i.c.k.
"Hang him!" cried Atlee; "nothing of the kind. Mr. Gladstone would present him with a suit of clothes, a ten-pound note, and a first-cla.s.s pa.s.sage to America. He would make a "healing measure" of him."
"I must say, gentlemen," said Nina scornfully, "you can discuss your friend"s fate with a marvellous equanimity."