"Yes; Clarissa. Is it not so?" Then she paused, and Ralph remembered the scene on the lawn. In very truth it had never been forgotten. There had always been present with him when he thought of Mary Bonner a sort of remembrance of the hour in which he had played the fool with dear Clary. He had kissed her. Well; yes; and with some girls kisses mean so much,—as Polly Neefit had said to her true lover. But then with others they mean just nothing. "If you want to find a wife in this house you had better ask her. It is certainly useless that you should ask me."
"Do you mean quite useless?" asked Ralph, beginning to be somewhat abashed.
"Absolutely useless. Did I not tell you something else,—something that I would not have hinted to you, had it not been that I desired to prevent the possibility of a renewal of anything so vain? But you think nothing of that! All that can be changed with you at a moment, if other things suit."
"That is meant to be severe, Miss Bonner, and I have not deserved it from you. What has brought me to you but that I admire you above all others?"
"You shouldn't admire me above others. Is a man to change as he likes because he sees a girl whose hair pleases him for the moment better than does hers to whom he has sworn to be true?" Ralph did not forget at this moment to whisper to himself for his own consolation, that he had never sworn to be true to Clarissa. And, indeed, he did feel, that though there had been a kiss, the scene on the lawn was being used unfairly to his prejudice. "I am afraid you are very fickle, Mr. Newton, and that your love is not worth much."
"I hope we may both live till you learn that you have wronged me."
"I hope so. If my opinion be worth anything with you, go back to her from whom you have allowed yourself to stray in your folly. To me you must not address yourself again. If you do, it will be an insult." Then she rose up, queenly in her beauty, and slowly left the room.
There must be an end of that. Such was Ralph's feeling as she left the room, in spite of those protestations of constancy and persistence which he had made to himself. "A fellow has to go on with it, and be refused half a dozen times by one of those proud ones," he had said; "but when they do knuckle under, they go in harness better than the others." It was thus that he had thought of Mary Bonner, but he did not so think of her now. No, indeed. There was an end of that. "There is a sort of way of doing it, which shows that they mean it." Such was his inward speech; and he did believe that Miss Bonner meant it. "By Jove, yes; if words and looks ever can mean anything." But how about Clarissa? If it was so, as Mary Bonner had told him, would it be the proper kind of thing for him to go back to Clarissa? His heart, too,—for he had a heart,—was very soft. He had always been fond of Clarissa, and would not, for worlds, that she should be unhappy. How pretty she was, and how soft, and how loving! And how proudly happy she would be to be driven about the Newton grounds by him as their mistress. Then he remembered what Gregory had said to him, and how he had encouraged Gregory to persevere. If anything of that kind were to happen, Gregory must put up with it. It was clear that Clarissa couldn't marry Gregory if she were in love with him. But how would he look Sir Thomas in the face? As he thought of this he laughed. Sir Thomas, however, would be glad enough to give his daughter, not to the heir but to the owner of Newton. Who could be that fellow whom Mary Bonner preferred to him—with all Newton to back his suit? Perhaps Mary Bonner did not know the meaning of being the mistress of Newton Priory.
After a while the servant came to show him to his chamber. Sir Thomas had come and had gone at once to his room. So he went up-stairs and dressed, expecting to see Clarissa when they all assembled before dinner. When he went down, Sir Thomas was there, and Mary, and Patience,—but not Clarissa. He had summoned back his courage and spoke jauntily to Sir Thomas. Then he turned to Patience and asked after her sister. "Clarissa is spending the day with Mrs. Brownlow," said Patience, "and will not be home till quite late."
"Oh, how unfortunate!" exclaimed Ralph. Taking all his difficulties into consideration, we must admit that he did not do it badly.