“I thank you, sir. You mean, of course, that I wish to secure myself from the imputation that I angled for what was cunning to elude me? I stand high in your opinion, indeed. But you force me to the avowal that I am under no necessity to deprecate the criticisms of my neighbours.”
“You could choose of the noblest in the land, and bring to any more honour than you received. If you have elected to misconstrue me of late, and to indirectly enlighten me as to your sense of my presumption, it was quite within your province, as a lady of high position, to do so.”
“Ah! I feel the sting behind your words of honey. Mr. Tuke”—her voice fell caressing as that of a remonstrant sister—“I will not pretend to misinterpret your attitude towards me. May I be simply frank with you? There is a proverb about flogging a willing horse. I own I have done that of late—that I have certified myself a consistent member of my sex. Is not that candour itself? Well, would you know what hath inspired me? ’Twas recalling the fate of that unhappy Mrs. Kauffmann.”
He laughed slightly.
“It understand the inference. My tongue is tied; but I can assure you I have never engaged in any service but my own.”
She did not answer; but her expression had gathered some coldness of reserve. His was enigmatical, as he continued:
“Am I justified in assuming that, satisfied on this point, you would at least offer no obstacle to my most respectful suit?”
“That is taking me at a disadvantage,” she said, with a winning smile. “No woman lends herself to a bargain where she hath to give credit.”
He bowed again. He could not but be conscious that this atmosphere of rigid politeness seemed ludicrously out of place in an avowal of so particular a kind; and that his declaration and its reception sounded rather in the nature of a passage of arms. He knew he had come, of set purpose, to seek in legitimate attachment a foil to passion. He was not so sure his heart joined in the quest, or that he had not privately courted the dismissal he professed to deprecate.
Perhaps Miss Royston entertained a like doubt. Though it would not have affected her attitude, she would have preferred, and had indeed looked to, more ardent means to a similar end. For what, otherwise, had she practised those late arts of coquetry? She had pictured her suitor, according to her judgment of him, storming the bastions of her pride; warm, palpitating, entreating—a demi-god revealing himself in a cloud of passion. And here he was addressing her with no more emotion than he might have shown in asking her interest to get an old woman into a hospital.