We understood one another to admiration. I was keenly alive to Lady Hildegarde’s family politics: how it was absolutely necessary that this young man—her son, so eagerly making her excuses to me—was bound, by every family law, to marry his cousin (and my cousin), Dolly Chalgrove—the marriage meant mental ease, suitability, prosperity, fortune. A marriage with me, which she bitterly but needlessly dreaded, meant a miserable, poverty-stricken mésalliance. Yes; I acknowledge that. It was a notorious fact that Mr. Somers was not a squire of dames. Lady Polexfen had magnified his attentions to me. Hence her coldness and neglect of Emma, her eagerness to transport me to the Colonies, her lies to her son, and her stern determination to keep us apart—wide apart.
“And so you will not accept my mother’s friendship?” he pursued.
I shook my head with an emphasis that was some relief to my feelings, although it was not an act of courtesy to my visitor.
“Well,” and he rose as he spoke, a very tall figure in our little low room, “you surely will not taboo me, Miss Hayes?” he asked appealingly. “I received great kindnesses, without question, from your father and mother. I knew your father better than you did yourself. You have told me that you have no relatives in this country.”
“None that I know,” I quibbled, “or that know of me.”
“Yes; you said so. Now, I hope you won’t think I am taking an awful liberty if I ask you what are your plans?”
“On the contrary, it is very kind of you to inquire. I am going to London in a few days, back to our old lodgings. I shall then look about for something to do. I should not care to be a nursery governess, nor, as my landlady suggests, sing and dance at a music-hall.”
“A music-hall!” His elbow swept a little saucer crash into the fender—he was too big for our room. “The woman must be mad!”
“Yes; she confesses that she has often listened outside on the landing when I played my guitar and sang, and thinks I would ‘take,’ as she calls it.”