The lawyer hesitated, suspicious of the wisdom of the delay, but not seeing how much harm could happen, seeing that he had all the precious documents in his own breast pocket; then he reluctantly granted Patty's request, and the girl went upstairs again with feet not quite so light as those that had carried her down. Upstairs, however, she subordinated her own interests to the consideration of her sister's more pressing affairs.
"Elizabeth," she said, with fervid and portentous solemnity, "this is a crisis for you, and you must be bold and brave. It is no time for shilly-shallying—you have twenty-four hours before you, and you must act. If you don't, you will see that he will just throw up everything, and be too proud to take it back. He will lose all his money and the influence for good that it gives him, and you will lose him."
"How shall I act?" asked Elizabeth, leaning instinctively upon this more courageous spirit.
"How?" echoed Patty, looking at her sister with brilliant eyes. "Oh!" drawing a long breath, and speaking with a yearning passion that it was beyond the power of good grammar to express—"oh, if it was only me!"
[CHAPTER XXXIX.]
AN ASSIGNATION.
That evening Mr. Yelverton was leisurely finishing his dinner at the club when a note was brought to him. He thought he knew the writing, though he had never seen it before, and put it into his pocket until he could politely detach himself from three semi-hosts, semi-guests, with whom he was dining. Then he went upstairs rather quickly, tearing open his letter as he went, and, arrived at the reading-room, sat down at a table, took pen in hand, and dashed off an immediate reply. "I will certainly be there," he wrote, in a hand more vigorous than elegant. "I will wait for you in the German picture gallery. Come as early as possible, while the place is quiet." And, having closed his missive and consigned it to the bag, he remained in a comfortable arm-chair in the quiet room, all by himself, meditating. He felt he had a great deal to think about, and it indisposed him for convivialities. The week since his parting with Elizabeth, long as it had seemed to him, had not quite run out, and she had made an assignation which, though it might have appeared unequivocal to the casual eye, was to him extremely perplexing. She had come back, and she wanted to see him, and she wanted to see him alone, and she asked him if he would meet her at the Exhibition in the morning. And she addressed him as her dearest friend, and signed herself affectionately his. He tried very hard, but he could not extract his expected comfort from such a communication, made under such circumstances.
In the morning he was amongst the first batch of breakfasters in the club coffee-room, and amongst the first to represent the public at the ticket-windows of the Carlton Palace. When he entered the great building, it was in the possession of officials and workmen, and echoed in a hollow manner to his solid footfall. Without a glance to right or left, he walked upstairs to the gallery and into that cosiest nook of the whole Exhibition, the German room, and there waited for his mistress. This restful room, with its carpeted floor and velvety settees (so grateful to the weary), its great Meissen vases in the middle, and casts of antique statues all round, was quite empty of visitors, and looked as pleasant and convenient a place of rendezvous as lovers could desire. If only Elizabeth would come quickly, he thought, they might have the most delicious quiet talk, sitting side by side on a semi-circular ottoman opposite to Lindenschmidt's "Death of Adonis"—not regarding that unhappy subject, of course, nor any other object but themselves. He would not sit down until she came, but strolled round and round, pausing now and then to investigate a picture, but thinking of nothing but his beloved, for whose light step he was listening. If his bodily eyes were fixed on the "Cloister Pond" or "Evening," or any other of the tranquil landscapes pictured on the wall, he thought of Elizabeth resting with him under green trees, far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife, absolutely his own, and in a world that (practically) held nobody but him and her. If he looked at autumnal rain slanting fiercely across the canvas, he thought how he would protect and shield her in all the storms that might visit her life—"My plaidie to the angry airt, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee!" And visions of a fair morning in Thuringia, of a lake in the Bavarian mountains, of a glacier in the Engadine, and of Venice in four or five aspects of sunlight and moonlight, suggested his wedding journey and how beautiful the world she had so longed to see—the world that he knew so well—would look henceforth, if—if—
There was a step upon the corridor outside, and he turned sharply from his contemplation of a little picture of an Isle of Wight sunrise to meet her as she came in. She had been walking hurriedly, but in the doorway she paused, seeing him striding towards her, and stood for a moment confused and hesitating, overcome with embarrassment. It was a bright morning, and she had dressed herself in a delicate linen gown, fitting easily to the sweeping curves of her noble figure—a gown over which Mrs. Duff-Scott had spent hours of careful thought and a considerable amount of money, but which was so simple and unpretending in its effects as to suggest the domestic needle and the judicious outlay of a few shillings to those admirable critics of the other sex who have so little knowledge of such matters and so much good taste; and all the details of her costume were in harmony with this central feature—her drooping straw hat, tied with soft Indian muslin under the chin, her Swedish gloves, her neat French shoes, her parasol—and the effect was insidious but impressive. She had got herself up carefully for her lover's eyes, and nobody could have looked less got up than she. Mr. Yelverton thought how much more charming was a homely every-day style than the elaborate dressing of the ball-room and the block, and that it was certainly evident to any sensible person that a woman like Elizabeth needed no arts of the milliner to make her attractive. He took her hand in a strong clasp, and held it in silence for a moment, his left hand laid over her fine unwrinkled glove, while he looked into her downcast face for some sign of the nature of her errand.