Mrs. Wedmore would have interposed here, but her husband waved his hand imperially, and she remained silent. Max leaned back in his chair and met his father"s eyes steadily.
"You have made a mistake, sir, and my mother has made a mistake, too. It is quite true she may have seen me kissing Miss--Miss--Carrie, in fact.
But I hope to have the right to kiss her. I want to marry her."
"To marry this--this--"
"This beautiful young girl, whom n.o.body has a word to say against,"
interrupted Max, in a louder voice. "Come, sir, you can"t say I"m at my old tricks _now_. I"ve never wanted to marry any girl before."
For the moment Mr. Wedmore was stupefied. This was worse, far worse than he had expected. Mrs. Wedmore, also, was rather shocked. But the sensation, was tempered, in her case, with admiration of her boy"s spirit in daring to make this avowal.
"Mind, I only say I _want_ to marry her. Because, so far, she has refused to have anything to say to me."
"Not refused to marry you!" broke in Mrs. Wedmore, unable to remain quiet under such provocation as this.
"Yes, refused to marry me, mother. I have asked her--begged her."
"Oh, it"s only artfulness, to make you more persistent," cried Mrs.
Wedmore, indignantly.
"Or perhaps," suggested Mr. Wedmore, in his driest tones, "the girl is shrewd enough to know that I should cut off a son who was guilty of such a piece of idiocy and leave him to his own resources."
Max said nothing for a moment; then he remarked, quietly:
"You have been threatening to do that already, sir, before there was any question of my marrying."
Mrs. Wedmore was frightened by the tone Max was using. He was so much quieter than usual, so much more decided in his tone, that she began to think there was less chance than usual of his coming to an agreement with his father.
"You know, Max," she said, coming over to his chair and putting an affectionate hand on his head, "that your father has only spoken to you as he has done because he wanted to rouse up your spirit and make you ashamed of being lazy."
Max rose from his chair and turned to her with flashing eyes.
"And now, when there is a chance of my rousing myself at last, when I am ready and anxious to prove it, and to set to work, and to settle down, he is angrier with me than ever. Mother, you know I"m right, and you know it isn"t fair."
Mrs. Wedmore looked with something like terror into her son"s handsome, excited face.
"But, my dear boy, don"t you see that this would be ruin, to tie yourself to a girl like that? Why, she told me herself that she didn"t belong to anywhere or anybody."
"And is that any reason why she should never belong to anywhere or to anybody? If there was anything wrong about the girl herself, I would listen to you--"
"Listen to us! You"ll have to listen!" interrupted his father.
Max glanced at him, and went on:
"But there is not."
"And how do you know that? How long have you known her?"
Max was taken aback. It had not occurred to him to think how short his acquaintance with Carrie had been.
"Long enough to find out all about her," he answered, soberly; "and to make up my mind that I"ll have her for my wife."
"Then that settles it," broke in Mr. Wedmore, whose ill-humor had not been decreased by the fact that Max evidently considered it more important to conciliate his mother than to try to convince him. "You will go to the Cape next month; and if you choose to take this baggage with you, you can do so. It won"t much matter to us what sort of a wife you introduce to your neighbors out there."
But Max strode across the room and stood face to face with his father, eye to eye.
"No, sir," he said, in a dogged tone of voice, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets and looking at him steadily. "I shall not go to the Cape. You have a right to turn me out of your house if you please. In fact, it"s quite time I went, I know. It"s time I did settle down. It"s time I did try to do something for myself. And I"m going to. I"m going to try to earn my own living and to make enough to keep a wife--the wife I want. And I shall do it somehow. But I"m not going to be packed off to Africa, as if my marrying this girl were a thing to be ashamed of. I"m going to stay in England. I sha"n"t come near you. You needn"t be afraid of that. I shall be too proud of my wife to bring her among people who would look down upon her. And perhaps you"d better not inquire where I live or what I"m doing, for we sha"n"t be able to live in a fashionable neighborhood, nor to be too particular about what we turn our hands to."
While Max made this speech very slowly, very deliberately, his father listened to him with ever-increasing anger and disgust, and his mother, not daring to come too close while he was right under the paternal eye, hung over the table in the background, with yearning, tremulous love in her eyes, and with her lips parted, ready to utter the tender words of a pleading peacemaker.
But the tone Mr. Wedmore chose to take was that of utter contempt, complete irresponsibility. When his son had finished speaking he waited as if to hear whether there was any more to come, and then abruptly turned his back upon him and began to poke the fire.
"Very well," said he, with an affectation of extreme calmness. "Since you have made up your mind, the sooner you begin to carry out your plans the better. I"m very glad to see that you have a mind to make up."
"Thank you, sir," said Max.
And he was turning to leave the room, when his mother sprang forward and stopped him.
"No, no! Don"t go like that! My boy! George! Don"t say good-bye yet.
Take a little time. Let him try a little trouble of his own for a change. He has made up his mind, he says. I"m sure he"s old enough.
Leave him alone."
Max put his arm round his mother, gave her a warm kiss, disengaged himself, and left the room.
The poor woman was almost hysterical.
"He means it, George! He means it this time!" she moaned.
And her husband, though he laughed at her, and though he said to himself that he did not care, was inclined to agree with her.
Max went straight up to his own room, and began to do his packing with much outward cheerfulness. Indeed he felt no depression over the dashing step he was taking, although he felt sore over the parting with home and his mother and sisters.
He was debating within himself whether he should try to see Carrie before he went, or whether he should only leave a note to be given to her after he was gone, when he heard the voice of his sister Doreen calling him. He threw open the door and shouted back.
She was in the hall.
"Max," cried she, in a hissing whisper, "I want to speak to you. Make haste!"
He ran downstairs and found her standing with two of the maids, both of whom looked rather frightened.
"Max," said Doreen, "there"s an old woman hanging about the place--" Max started. He guessed what was coming. "The same old woman that came at Christmas time. She jumped up in the well-house at Anne, and sent her into hysterics. And now they"ve lost sight of her, just as they did last time, and we want you to help to ferret her out and send her away."
"All right," said Max. "We"ll pack her off."
He was at the bottom of the staircase by this time, and was starting on his way to the yard, when a little scream from one of the two maids, as she glanced up the stairs, made him look around. Carrie had come down so lightly and so swiftly that she was upon the group before they had heard a sound. She beckoned to Max, who came back at once.
Carrie was shaking like a leaf; her eyes were wide with alarm, with terror. Max went up a few stairs, to be out of hearing of the others, as she seemed to wish. Then she whispered:
"You know who it is. I saw her. Leave her alone. I implore you to leave her alone! She"ll do no harm. Let her rest. Let the poor creature rest.