II.
AFTER dinner, Miss Cullen, strolling about the great glasshouse, all alone, came upon Sir Tristram, also all alone. Although not, probably, more than half an inch taller than the gentleman, she looked, yes, down at him, as if, comparatively, he were but an insect at her feet.
"Well, Sir Tristram, what amends do you propose to make to me?"
"Miss Cullen?"
"Sir?"
She looked at him; and this famous lawyer who had been more than a match for the olla podrida of the law courts, and the champions of the political ring, quailed before a young girl's eyes.
"I fear, Miss Cullen, that I fail to apprehend your meaning."
"Is it possible that you are an habitual desecrator of that law which you have sworn to uphold, and that, therefore, the details of your crimes are apt to escape your memory? More than three months have elapsed since you committed your crime. So far as I know, you have not sought as yet to take advantage of any occasion to offer me atonement."
Sir Tristram faced round to her with something of the bull-dog look which had come upon his face when he had found himself in front of Mr. Stanham.
"May I inquire, Miss Cullen, why you go out of your way to use language of such extravagant exaggeration? It would be gross absurdity, amounting almost to prostitution of language, to call the offence of which I was guilty, if it was an offence, a crime."
"Perhaps it is because you are a lawyer that you are unaware that not so very long ago a man was sentenced to six months' imprisonment for exactly the same thing."
"'THAT FOR THE CHANCELLOR!'"
Sir Tristram fidgeted. He seemed not to have complete control over his tongue.
"Miss Cullen, I trust that I may never be found lacking in respect to a lady. If I have been so unfortunate as to have offended you, I proffer you my most sincere apologies, and I humbly entreat for your forgiveness."
Miss Cullen remained, obviously, wholly unmoved.
"When a criminal expresses his contrition, is he held, by so doing, to have sufficiently purged himself of his offence?"
"What is it that you require of me?"
"I am told that you are to be the new Lord Chancellor. I am a ward in chancery."
"I learn the fact with the greatest pleasure."
"Do you? Then your pleasure bears a strong resemblance to my pain. I am to remain a ward till I am twenty-five."
"Indeed?"
Sir Tristram began to rub his hands.
"Yes,—indeed! I had an objectionable uncle who was so foolish as to suppose that I could not be a better judge of my own life's happiness than—a number of elderly gentlemen."
"Hem!" Sir Tristram coughed.
"If I was willing to overlook your offence—" Sir Tristram smiled—"I should require a quid pro quo."
"And what, my dear Miss Cullen, would be the nature of the quid pro quo?"
"'WELL, OLD MAN, HAVE YOU HAD IT OUT WITH TRIGGS?'"
"I should want you to consent to my marrying."
"To consent to your marrying?—Ah!—I see!—If the matter is laid before me in due and proper form—it is possible that you have a certain individual in your mind's eye whom you are willing to make the happiest of men—and I was satisfied that he was a fit, and a proper, person, and every care was taken to safeguard your interests—then, my dear Miss Cullen, nothing would give me greater pleasure than to give my consent to your being happily launched on what, I fear, is, too often, the troubled sea of marriage."
"That's not the sort of thing I want at all."
"No? Then what is the sort of thing you want, may I inquire?"
The young lady tapped her foot against the floor. For the first time, she seemed to be not entirely at her ease.
"The fact is, I'm married already."
"Married—already?—With the consent of the court?"
"Bother the court!"
"Young lady!—Are you aware who it is to whom you are speaking?"
"I am perfectly aware. I am speaking to the person who kissed me against my will."
"Miss Cullen!—I'm the Chancellor!"
"That for the Chancellor!"
She actually snapped her fingers in his face. He seemed to be speechless; though, perhaps, he only seemed so. When he did speak, it was as if he were suffering positive pain.
"I find myself unable to believe that you are capable of realising the position in which I stand, the position in which you stand, too. Personal misusage I might endure. But, in this matter, I am impersonal. Take care! I represent, in my poor person, the majesty of English law."
He turned as if to go. If he supposed that he had crushed her, he was very much mistaken.
"Is that your last word, Sir Tristram?"
"Miss Cullen, it is my last."
"Then, now, be so good as to listen to my last word. The Duke of Datchet is a magistrate. I will go straight to him, and demand from him a warrant for your arrest."
"A warrant, for my arrest? Girl!"
"I presume that it is because I am a girl, that you are enough of a man, first to assault, and then to bully me."
Taking out his handkerchief, Sir Tristram applied it to his brow.
"Am I mad, or you? Are you utterly impervious to any sort of reason?"
"Not more than you are. I have yet to learn that, because you are Lord Chancellor, you cannot be made to answer for your crimes, exactly like any other criminal. Forgive my husband, forgive me, whose only crime has been that we love each other, and who have not offended in the sight either of heaven or of earth, and I will forgive you, who have offended in the sight of both. Decline to do so, and, unless there is one law for the great and another for the small, in which case the world shall hear of it, I promise that you shall learn, from personal experience, what it means to go to gaol."
Sir Tristram looked about him, as if he wondered why the earth did not open to swallow her. He seemed to gasp for breath.
"Miss Cullen, I beg that you will not suppose, that, under any possible circumstances, I could listen, even for a single instant, to what, to me, are your hideous insinuations. But one possible solution I do see to the painful situation in which you stand. If the person whom you have illicitly and improperly married—"
"Not improperly married, how dare you!"
"'HER BEHAVIOUR FILLED ME WITH PROFOUND AMAZEMENT.'"
"In the eyes of the court, Miss Cullen, certainly, in the eyes of the court. Hear me out. If this person should prove to be a fit and a proper person, of good character, of due position, and so forth, then, taking all the circumstances into consideration, I might be moved to leniency. What is the person's name?"
"He is of the highest lineage."
"So far, so good."
"He is a gentleman of the noblest character."
"Still better."
"He would be showing honour to any lady in the land if he made of her his wife."
"Hem! Precisely! I asked you for his name."
"Thomas Stanham."
"Thomas Stanham!" Sir Tristram's countenance went as black as a thundercloud. "Thomas Stanham!" He turned to her with a look of fury on his face which took even Miss Cullen by surprise. "That vagabond!"
"How dare you speak so of my husband, sir?"
"Your husband? Girl, you are a fool! You, the owner of prospective millions, have thrown them, even before they are in your actual possession, into the lap of that pitiful adventurer. You ask me to show him leniency? I will be lenient to you at least. I will protect you from him, in spite of yourself."
He spoke with a degree of dramatic intensity which threw a lurid light upon the cause of his success in life. Miss Cullen was silenced after all. She stood and watched him as he strode away, with a degree of dignity in his bearing which seemed to have suddenly made him taller.
"Tommy must have wiped his eye!"
That was what she said to herself when she was alone.
"Well, old man, have you had it out with Triggs?"
Turning, Miss Cullen found that Mr. Stanham had approached from behind. He stood in the doorway—as usual, with his hands in his pockets.
"Yes, young man, I've had it out with Triggs."
Miss Cullen had a little flush on her cheeks, and an added light in her eyes, which superfluities, it might be said, unjustifiably heightened her attractions.
"Softened his adamantine breast?"
"Well, hardly. Not what you might call quite. In fact, I should say that, if he remains in his present frame of mind, he will send you, for a certainty, to something much worse than penal servitude for life."
"Is that so? Very kind of you, I'm sure. I knew you'd make a mess of it, my love."
"Wait till the play is over. There's always a muddle in the middle. The third act has not begun."