“Not at all, sir! ’Tis what suits my station—so long as the sheets are clean and there’s a good bolt to the door; you’ll promise me that, Mr. Landlord? And if you can’t spare a warming pan, sure a hot brick will do vastly well. And now, sir, give me time to see my bandboxes in safety, and I’m for supper.”
Even as she spoke she started. Her eye became fixed, her lips fell open upon a gasp of amazement. The healthy white bloom of her countenance turned to deathly pallor, and then a tide of blood rushed crimsoning to her forehead. Beholding this evidence of strong emotion, it scarcely needed the sight that met Sir Everard’s glance as he followed the direction of her eyes to confirm his instant conclusion. The young man, of course! Stay, the young man is a gentleman—poor nymph! Here then were joy, and fear, confusion, the warning of conscience, and artless passion, all mixed together.
The young gentleman advanced; a fine buck, of the very kind, thought Sir Everard, who took an instantaneous dislike to him, to turn the head of any girl beneath him in station, whom he might honour with his conquering regard. There was a black and white handsomeness about his chiselled countenance; all the powder in the world could not disguise that those jet eyebrows were matched with a raven spring of hair. With a smile, a dilation of nostrils, a swagger of broad shoulders, a leisurely step of high-booted legs, he came forward out of the tap-room. No surprise on his side: my gentleman had planned the meeting.
“La, Mr. Bellairs!” Pamela Pounce exclaimed, and her voice trembled. Then she rallied, and strove to pursue with lightness, “who ever would have thought of seeing you here?”
He took her hand and lifted it to his lips with an exaggerated courtesy, as if he mocked himself for it the while.
“Why, did I not guess rightly, my dear, you would be spending a lonely evening here on your way home?”
“Oh, Mr. Bellairs!”
He kept her hand in his, to draw her apart. Sir Everard, gazing at them, his chin sunk in his muffler, with severe, sad eyes, saw how she swayed towards him, as she went into the window recess, as if her very soul floated on the music of his voice. He watched them whisper ardently together, and then she went by him like a tornado, picking up her bandboxes as she passed, quite oblivious of his presence, or of anything, apparently, save the young rascal, so Sir Everard apostrophised him, who stood gazing after her with the same insufferable smile; the smile of the easy conqueror.
Sir Everard never had had a high opinion of women. Life had given him no reason to indulge in illusions. But now all his condemnation was for the man. The strong, self-reliant creature who had faced him all those weary hours with such unalterable good humour, such a candid outlook, such a pleasant acceptance of her own position that it was the next thing to high breeding, what was this Captain Lothario planning to make of her? And how, since he had found her already so hard to win that he must travel to Canterbury for the purpose, did she now thus readily yield herself to his plucking hand? Ay, the villain had struck at some peril point in the life of her soul. The child was tired after her long journey; tired too, perhaps, by the mental conflict from which her integrity had hitherto emerged triumphant. A sudden assault had found the fortress unprepared. ’Twas the old story!
Sir Everard went wearily to his room. The thought of the feather bed and the gruel, of a selfish withdrawal from further association with what was like to end in sordid tragedy tempted him perhaps, but he did not yield to it. The girl’s smile haunted him. It had been so brightly innocent; and he was haunted, too, by the last memory of her face, stricken with astonishment, quivering with joy. However she might fall, it would not be through light-mindedness. The folly, the misery, was deep rooted in her poor heart.