“In any case,” cried Linton, “if he lay down the treasure—and treasure it must be—here in the doorway, I 'll take care that the walls do not swallow it up again; we shall be able to find it in the morning.”
“And will you really have this done?”
“I 'll give the orders this very day.”
“I must not be so silly,” said she, after a pause; “the whole is too absurd. No, Mr. Linton, do not, I beg of you, do not take any notice of my folly.”
“At all events,” said Linton, “your dream is a most happy inspiration; a door here will be a great improvement, and if the vista takes in the chapel, so much the better. Remember, too,” added he, in a lower and more feeling voice,—“remember what I have told you so often, that whatever we do here has, so to say, no other reward than the pleasure it gives me the doing. Our great patron has about as much gratefulness in his composition as taste. He will neither feel thankful for our exertions, nor sensible of their success, and is just as likely to desecrate yon Ritter-Saal, by making it his smoking-room.”
“If I thought so,” said she, proudly, and then stopped suddenly. “But how can it concern me? I have only to wonder how you can accept of an intimacy so distasteful.”
This, in its very abruptness, was a home-thrust; and so much did Linton feel it that he reddened, at first with shame, and then with anger at his want of composure.
“There are many circumstances in life, Miss Leicester,” said he, gravely, “which demand heavy sacrifices of personal feeling; and happy if sometimes the recompense come in seeing that our self-devotion has worked well for others! I may one day explain myself more fully on this head.”
Before Mary could answer, a messenger came to say that her grandfather was waiting to return with her to the cottage, and she bid Linton good-bye with a degree of interest for him she had never felt before. Linton stood in a window and watched her as she went, nor did his eye quit the graceful form till it disappeared in the covering of the trees. “Yes,” said he to himself, “I have struck the right chord at last! She neither is to be dazzled by the splendor nor excited by the ambitions of the great world. The key to the mystery of her nature lies in the very fact of her position in life,—the indignant struggle against a condition she feels beneath her; she can sympathize with this. She is just the very girl, too, to awaken Laura's jealousy, so brilliantly handsome, so much of elegance in mien and deportment Ay! the game will win; I may stake all upon it. Who is that?” said he, starting suddenly, as a door banged behind him, and he saw Tom Keane, who had been a silent listener to his soliloquy. Linton well knew that, shrewd as the man was, the words could have conveyed little or nothing to his intelligence, and carelessly asked what had the post brought.
“A heap of letters, yer honer,” said he, laying the heavily loaded bag on the table. “I never see so many come to the town afore.”