I put my hands in my pockets after that last remark, and walked to the window glumly; but as I stood with my back to him, I could not help wondering if he was making faces at me, or up to any other undignified antics by way of relaxation. Did he ever wriggle with merriment when he was alone? I turned suddenly at the thought. He was calmly perusing a paper through his pince-nez, with an expression of countenance at once so benign, silly, and self-satisfied, that I felt I should like to have apologised for the suspicion.
"There is nothing for it, Galbraith," he said, "that I can see. She must either be poverty-stricken or have an income provided for her."
"She has enough to go on with for the present," I answered.
"You can provide the money yourself if you would rather," he suggested, in the tone of one who gives in good-naturedly to oblige you. "I don"t care, you know, where the money comes from, so long as the source is disinterested and respectable."
I had returned to the table, but now again I walked to the window.
"But, I think," he continued, while I stood with my back to him, "as you say, for the present nothing need be done. Give her time for a rope--eh?
What I do deprecate is leaving her to be driven by poverty to marry for money. My dear Galbraith," he broke off, protesting, "you have been on the prance for the last half-hour. For a medical man, you have less repose of manner than is essential, I should say. In fact, you quite give me the notion that you are impatient. But perhaps I am detaining you?"
"Oh, not at all," I a.s.sured him.
"Well, as I was saying," he pursued, "give her time to marry again. That would be the most satisfactory settlement of her difficulties. She is, I quite agree with you, a very attractive person. Now, there is the Duke of Panama already, Lady Adeline says--but she seems to have an objection to princes, especially if they are at all obese. I do not like obese people myself. Now, do _you_ ever feel nervous on that score?"
"What score?"
"The score of obesity. You are just nicely proportioned at present for a man of your age and height. _I_, of course, am far too slender. But if you were to get any stouter by and by, it would be such a dreadful thing! I hope flesh is not in your family on both sides. On one I know it is. Now, my people are all slender. There is a great deal in that, I notice."
He was doing up the doc.u.ments now with much neatness and dexterity.
"These had better go to my lawyer," he remarked.
"Why not to mine?" I suggested.
"Oh, allow me," he said, with great suavity--"as the older man. Of course, as a question of right, we neither of us have any claim to the privilege of being allowed to help this lady. Eventually, however, one of us may secure the right; but there is many a slip, you know, and perhaps it would be less awkward afterward if a person whose disinterestedness is quite above suspicion had had the direction of affairs from the first."
There could be no doubt of what he meant by this time, and the argument was unanswerable.
"Do you feel inclined to return with me to Mentone?" he asked.
"I am afraid I cannot get away just now."
"Ah! I suppose it _is_ too soon. Well, she is quite safe with us, and we will bring her back to Hamilton House in the spring.". Mr.
Hamilton-Wells smiled complacently as he took his seat in his carriage. I almost expected him to thank me for the sport I had been giving him, he looked so like a man who had been enjoying himself thoroughly. I thought about that last remark of his after he had gone, and pitied Lady Adeline.
It must be trying to be liable at any moment to have words, which one deliberately chooses to hide one"s thoughts, set aside as of no consequence, and the thoughts themselves answered navely. However, there was no real reason for hiding my thoughts any longer on that subject. I had done my best manfully, I hope, while the necessity lasted, to mask my feeling for her, even from myself; but there was now no further need for self-restraint. I might live for her and love her honestly, and openly at last; and, accordingly, when Sir Shadwell Rock came to me for a few days at Christmas, I did not attempt to conceal my intention from him.
"It is a great risk," he said gravely, "a very great risk. Of course, now that the first cause of all the trouble is removed, the mental health may be thoroughly restored. So long as there is no organic brain lesion there is hope in all such cases. But I tell you frankly that the first call upon her physical strength may set up a recurrence of the moral malady, and you cannot foresee the consequences. However, you know as much about that as I do, and I can see it"s no use warning you. You have made up your mind."
"Yes," I answered. "I shall be able to take good care of her if only I am fortunate enough to win her."
"Well, well, she seems to be a loyal little body," the old gentleman replied; "and I wish you success with all my heart. She will have much in her favour as your wife, and since you are determined to run the risk, let us hope for the best."
And that was just what I did while I waited for the spring, and to such good purpose that I became light-hearted as a schoolboy. I watched the birds building; I noticed the first faint green shadow on the hedges, and the yellowing of the gorse; I listened in the freshness of the dawn to the thrush that sang "Evadne." And when at last Mr. Hamilton-Wells walked in one day unexpectedly, and explained, somewhat superfluously, that he had come, I could have thrown up my hat and cheered!
"But without the ladies," he added.
"Have you left them behind you?" I demanded, trying not to look blank.
"Yes," he answered very slowly, then added: "At Hamilton House." I suppose n.o.body ever thought of kicking anything so "slender" as Mr, Hamilton-Wells, or a.s.sociated such a vulgar idea as would have been involved in the suspicion of a deliberate intention to "sell" you with a person of such courteous and distinguished manners. But one did occasionally wonder what he was like at school, and if blessings and abuse were often showered on him then at one and the same time, as had come to be the case in later life.
He had come to ask me to dinner that evening, and when I arrived he was standing on the hearthrug, gracefully, with a palm-leaf fan in his hand, Evadne greeted me quietly, Lady Adeline with affectionate cordiality, and Diavolo, who was the only other member of the party, with a grave yet bright demeanour which made him more like his Uncle Dawne in miniature than ever.
""In the spring,"" Mr. Hamilton-Wells observed precisely, waving his fan to emphasise each word, and addressing a remote angle of the cornice, ""In the spring a young man"s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.""
Diavolo flushed crimson, Lady Adeline looked annoyed, but Evadne sat pale and still, as if she had not heard.
I was right about her not being likely to leave her affairs in anybody"s hands. Very soon after her arrival she insisted upon having an accurate statement of accounts, and begged me to go over to Hamilton House one morning to render it, as she found Mr. Hamilton-Wells quite unapproachable on the subject.
She received me in the morning room alone, and began at once in the most business-like way, "Mr. Hamilton-Wells" reticence convinces me that I am a beggar," she said cheerfully. "Tell me the exact sum I have to depend upon?"
I named it.
"Oh, then," she proceeded, "the question is, What shall I do? I cannot possibly live in the world, you know, on such a sum as that."
"What do you propose to do?" I asked, her tone having suggested some definite plan already formed.
"Go into a sisterhood, I think," she answered.
"Nonsense!" I exclaimed.
She raised her eyebrows.
"I beg your pardon," I said. "But you are not fit for such a life. Why, in a month you would be seeing visions and dreaming dreams."
"But I am afraid I shall do that now in any case, wherever I am," she sighed; and then she added, smiling at her own cynicism; "and I think I had better go where such things can be turned to good account. I have had no horrid thoughts, by the way, since I left As-You-Like-It, but of course I shall relapse."
"No, you will not," I blurted out, "if you marry happily."
Her face flushed all over at the word.
"Will you, Evadne," I proceeded--"or rather could you--be happy with me?"
She rose, and made me a deep courtesy. "Thank you," she answered scornfully, "for your kind consideration, Sir George Galbraith! I always thought you the most disinterested person I ever knew, but I had no idea that even you could go so far as that!"
And then she left me alone with my consternation.
How in the name of all that is perplexing had I offended her?
Lady Adeline came in at that moment, and I put the question to her, telling her exactly what I had said. She burst out laughing.
"My dear George!" she exclaimed, "forgive me! I can"t help it! But don"t you think yourself you were a little bit abrupt? You do not seem to have mentioned the fact that you feel any special affection for Evadne. It did not occur to you to protest that you loved her, for instance?"
"No, it did not," I answered; "I should think that the fact is patent enough without protestations."
"She may have overlooked it, all the same," Lady Adeline suggested, still laughing at me. "I would advise you to find out the next time you have a chance."
"Where is she?" I demanded, going toward the door.