How I wished that he would break his silence on this subject, and be ingenuous! But I felt it was a delicate subject for him to treat—and I resolved to break the ice myself.
"That was a very beautiful woman to whom you bowed just now," said I, glad to find that Mrs. Pendarves was looking another way.
"She has been beautiful indeed!" was his reply.
Then looking at me, surprised I doubt not at the tremor of my voice, he was equally surprised at my excessive paleness, and with some little sarcasm in his tone, he said,
"My dear Helen, is my only bowing to a fine woman capable of making your cheek pale, and your voice trembling?"
"No," said I, "not so—you wrong me indeed; nor did I know that my cheek was pale." I said no more, shrinking from the seeming indelicacy of forcing a confidence which he was disposed to withhold.
"Helen," said he, looking up in my face, "I see our aunt Pendarves has been at her old work, telling tales of me. I protest I shall insist on my uncle's sending her muzzled into your company."
"The best way of muzzling her would be to anticipate all her communications yourself. It would be such an effectual silence to a woman like our little aunt, to be able to say, 'I know that already!'"
"That's artfully put, Helen! But, really, there are some things which I have respected you too much to name to you. A general knowledge of my past faults and follies you have long had; but, from no unworthy motive, I have shrunk from talking to you of any particular one: and I feel pained and shocked, my beloved wife, to know that you are aware of that lady's having once been very near, if not very dear, to me in the days of my early youth."
"Enough," said I, "enough! Forget that I know any thing which you wished me not to know, and assure yourself that I will forget also."