It would be in vain to describe the rapid, varying, indefinable emotions that pa.s.sed through the inexperienced heart of the youthful listener as Harley thus spoke. He so moved all the springs of amaze, compa.s.sion, tender respect, sympathy, child-like grat.i.tude, that when he paused and gently took her hand, she remained bewildered, speechless, overpowered.
Harley smiled as he gazed upon her blushing, downcast, expressive face.
He conjectured at once that the idea of such proposals had never crossed her mind; that she had never contemplated him in the character of wooer; never even sounded her heart as to the nature of such feelings as his image had aroused.
"My Helen," he resumed, with a calm pathos of voice, "there is some disparity of years between us, and perhaps I may not hope henceforth for that love which youth gives to the young. Permit me simply to ask, what you will frankly answer, Can you have seen in our quiet life abroad, or under the roof of your Italian friends, any one you prefer to me?"
"No, indeed, no!" murmured Helen. "How could I; who is like you?" Then, with a sudden effort--for her innate truthfulness took alarm, and her very affection for Harley, childlike and reverent, made her tremble lest she should deceive him--she drew a little aside, and spoke thus,
"Oh, my dear guardian, n.o.blest of all human beings, at least in my eyes, forgive, forgive me, if I seem ungrateful, hesitating; but I cannot, cannot think of myself as worthy of you. I never so lifted my eyes. Your rank, your position--"
"Why should they be eternally my curse? Forget them, and go on."
"It is not only they," said Helen, almost sobbing, "though they are much; but I your type, your ideal!--I?--impossible! Oh, how can I ever be anything even of use, of aid, of comfort to one like you!"
"You can, Helen--you can," cried Harley, charmed by such ingenuous modesty. "May I not keep this hand?" And Helen left her hand in Harley"s, and turned away her face, fairly weeping.
A stately step pa.s.sed under the wintry trees.
"My mother," said Harley L"Estrange, looking up, "I present to you my future wife."
CHAPTER IX.
With a slow step and an abstracted air, Harley L"Estrange bent his way towards Egerton"s house, after his eventful interview with Helen. He had just entered one of the streets leading into Grosvenor Square, when a young man, walking quickly from the opposite direction, came full against him, and drawing back with a brief apology, recognized him, and exclaimed, "What! you in England, Lord L"Estrange! Accept my congratulations on your return. But you seem scarcely to remember me."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Leslie. I remember you now by your smile; but you are of an age in which it is permitted me to say that you look older than when I saw you last."
"And yet, Lord L"Estrange, it seems to me that you look younger."
Indeed, this reply was so far true that there appeared less difference of years than before between Leslie and L"Estrange; for the wrinkles in the schemer"s mind were visible in his visage, while Harley"s dreamy worship of Truth and Beauty seemed to have preserved to the votary the enduring youth of the divinities.
Harley received the compliment with a supreme indifference, which might have been suitable to a Stoic, but which seemed scarcely natural to a gentleman who had just proposed to a lady many years younger than himself.
Leslie renewed: "Perhaps you are on your way to Mr. Egerton"s. If so, you will not find him at home; he is at his office."
"Thank you. Then to his office I must re-direct my steps."
"I am going to him myself," said Randal, hesitatingly. L"Estrange had no prepossessions in favour of Leslie from the little he had seen of that young gentleman; but Randal"s remark was an appeal to his habitual urbanity, and he replied, with well-bred readiness, "Let us be companions so far."
Randal accepted the arm proffered to him; and Lord L"Estrange, as is usual with one long absent from his native land, bore part as a questioner in the dialogue that ensued.
"Egerton is always the same man, I suppose,--too busy for illness, and too firm for sorrow?"
"If he ever feel either, he will never stoop to complain. But, indeed, my dear lord, I should like much to know what you think of his health."
"How! You alarm me!"
"Nay, I did not mean to do that; and pray do not let him know that I went so far. But I have fancied that he looks a little worn and suffering."
"Poor Audley!" said L"Estrange, in a tone of deep affection. "I will sound him, and, be a.s.sured, without naming you; for I know well how little he likes to be supposed capable of human infirmity. I am obliged to you for your hint, obliged to you for your interest in one so dear to me."
And Harley"s voice was more cordial to Randal than it had ever been before. He then began to inquire what Randal thought of the rumours that had reached himself as to the probable defeat of the Government, and how far Audley"s spirits were affected by such risks. But Randal here, seeing that Harley could communicate nothing, was reserved and guarded.
"Loss of office could not, I think, affect a man like Audley," observed Lord L"Estrange. "He would be as great in opposition--perhaps greater; and as to emoluments--"
"The emoluments are good," interposed Randal, with a half-sigh.
"Good enough, I suppose, to pay him back about a tenth of what his place costs our magnificent friend. No, I will say one thing for English statesmen, no man amongst them ever yet was the richer for place."
"And Mr. Egerton"s private fortune must be large, I take for granted,"
said Randal, carelessly.
"It ought to be, if he has time to look to it."
Here they pa.s.sed by the hotel in which lodged the Count di Peschiera.
Randal stopped. "Will you excuse me for an instant? As we are pa.s.sing this hotel, I will just leave my card here." So saying he gave his card to a waiter lounging by the door. "For the Count di Peschiera," said he, aloud.
L"Estrange started; and as Randal again took his arm, said, "So that Italian lodges here; and you know him?"
"I know him but slightly, as one knows any foreigner who makes a sensation."
"He makes a sensation?"
"Naturally; for he is handsome, witty, and said to be very rich,--that is, as long as he receives the revenues of his exiled kinsman."
"I see you are well informed, Mr. Leslie. And what is supposed to bring hither the Count di Peschiera?"
"I did hear something, which I did not quite understand, about a bet of his that he would marry his kinsman"s daughter, and so, I conclude, secure to himself all the inheritance; and that he is therefore here to discover the kinsman and win the heiress. But probably you know the rights of the story, and can tell me what credit to give to such gossip."
"I know this at least, that if he did lay such a wager, I would advise you to take any odds against him that his backers may give," said L"Estrange, dryly; and while his lip quivered with anger, his eye gleamed with arch ironical humour.
"You think, then, that this poor kinsman will not need such an alliance in order to regain his estates?"
"Yes; for I never yet knew a rogue whom I would not bet against, when he backed his own luck as a rogue against Justice and Providence."
Randal winced, and felt as if an arrow had grazed his heart; but he soon recovered.
"And indeed there is another vague rumour that the young lady in question is married already--to some Englishman." This time it was Harley who winced. "Good heavens! that cannot be true,--that would undo all! An Englishman just at this moment! But some Englishman of correspondent rank I trust, or at least one known for opinions opposed to what an Austrian would call Revolutionary doctrines?"
"I know nothing. But it was supposed merely a private gentleman of good family. Would not that suffice? Can the Austrian Court dictate a marriage to the daughter as a condition for grace to the father?"
"No,--not that!" said Harley, greatly disturbed. "But put yourself in the position of any minister to one of the great European monarchies.
Suppose a political insurgent, formidable for station and wealth, had been proscribed, much interest made on his behalf, a powerful party striving against it; and just when the minister is disposed to relent, he hears that the heiress to this wealth and this station is married to the native of a country in which sentiments friendly to the very opinions for which the insurgent was proscribed are popularly entertained, and thus that the fortune to be restored may be so employed as to disturb the national security, the existing order of things,--this, too, at the very time when a popular revolution has just occurred in France, and its effects are felt most in the very land of the exile;--suppose all this, and then say if anything could be more untoward for the hopes of the banished man, or furnish his adversaries with stronger arguments against the restoration of his fortune? But pshaw! this must be a chimera! If true, I should have known of it."
[As there have been so many revolutions in France, it may be convenient to suggest that, according to the dates of this story, Harley no doubt alludes to that revolution which exiled Charles X.
and placed Louis Philippe on the throne.]