Passing, on his way, by a perruquier’s, he checked himself, and stood for some moments at gaze in a motionless reverie. Then he entered the shop, made a purchase, and, going to a barber’s, caused himself to be shorn, shaved, and restored to the conventional aspect. Thus conditioned, he knocked at the Fair’s door, and was ushered up—bawled up, rather, by a slattern landlady—into her presence.
She rose to face him as he entered. She had his letter in her hand. Her beautiful hair, jealous, it seemed, to withdraw itself from the curioso’s very appraisement, was gathered into and concealed under a cap. Her features, thus robbed of their dazzling frame, looked curiously, sadly childish and forlorn. There were dark marks round her eyes—the scarce dissipated clouds of recent tears. Who can tell what emotions, at sight of this piteous, hard-driven loveliness, stirred the heart of the man opposite, and were repressed by his iron will?
“This letter, sir,” said the Fair, holding out the paper in a hand which shook a little. “I have tacitly permitted you to presume a right to a personal answer to that which it proposes, because such a course appeared to me the least compromising. I cannot write my name, sir, nowdays—as scandal doubtless hath informed you—but Fortune will be using it to my discredit.”
Sir Richard bowed.
“There is this difference only, madam: my word is the bond of a gentleman. I vowed you secrecy.”
“That is to assume, on your part,” she said quietly, “a confidentialness which, in its insult to misfortune, is at least not the act of a gentleman. Moreover, a gentleman, surely, had not taken advantage of circumstances to propose to destitution what affluence had once refused him.”
“Beware, madam!” said Avenant. “Pride must make some sacrifices to virtue. If, in renewing a pure business offer, I, a simple instrument in the hands of Providence, give you an opportunity to maintain that priceless possession unimpaired, would it not be the truer self-respect to secure your honour at whatever cost to your sentiments?”
“I thank you, sir,” she said. “I have not forgotten, nor forgotten to resent, my self-constituted Mentor. I will assure him that, for the matter of my virtue, it is safe in my hands, though I have to arm those against myself.”
“Good heavens, madam!” cried Avenant. “You are not at that resource?”
“Give yourself no concern, sir,” she answered coldly. “The moral I learned of your insult, was to save myself in its despite.”