[CHAPTER XLIII.]
CLARENCE IS ANSWERED.
The week which Patty had asked of Clarence Toxteth had expired; and that young lady was in her chamber, giving the last touches to her toilet before going down to the parlor to meet her suitor. The days seemed to her to have passed with flying feet. She had occupied herself much more in thinking how short a space she had for deliberation than in considering the important question she was now to answer. She therefore found herself no nearer a conclusion when Clarence called than when she had dismissed him a week earlier.
Her toilet completed, the girl leaned her face upon her hands, and regarded herself in the mirror.
"I must decide," she mused. "I must give him an answer. I never can say yes. Suppose he should want to touch me, or to kiss me. Ugh! I should die! How red my face is! It must be because I hurried so. The color is becoming, though. I ought to go down, but it will do him good to wait a while; and I must think.
"Oh, I wish a woman was independent as a man is! Then I needn't be engaged to anybody. But I never can care for anybody as I did for Tom. How could Tom be so—how could he act so! I must be engaged to Clarence to show Tom that I'm not heart-broken for him. Oh, how I hate Tom Putnam!—at least I hate the way he acts. Hate makes more matches than love, I dare say. What nonsense! Let me think: I must think. I'm sure Clarence is nice. He has so refined personal habits! And then his wife could have any thing money could buy. Wife? There's time enough to think of that: this is only the engagement, and I dare say one gets fond of any man by being engaged to him long enough. Perhaps I should get to be willing to be Mrs. Toxteth. I'm sure I hope so. This comb is certainly in a little bit too high. There! I am pretty, but a girl is despised forever that will own she thinks herself so. Dear me! I must go down stairs and see that horrid Clarence. I'm sure I don't see why he need be forever bothering me for an answer. How unhappy I am! and I'm afraid I deserve it. I wonder if he wouldn't give me a week longer. No, I don't think I quite dare to ask for that: I've treated him shamefully now. But I'll make amends: I'll say yes, but I do hate to awfully."
And down stairs swept the young lady to meet the suitor to whom she had decided to plight her troth. He rose to meet her, uttering some polite commonplace, and she began to rattle on about the gossip of Montfield. She dreaded the question he had come to ask; yet soon she began to experience an irritated desire that he would speak, and end this suspense. She carried that fatal yes as a burden of which she would fain be rid as quickly as possible. At last the question came.
"Have you thought that the week you asked is up?" Clarence inquired.