“Go on,” said she, calmly. And her fingers never trembled as they held the brush.
“I confess I do envy that tranquil spirit of yours,” said he, bitterly. “It is such a triumph to be calm, cold, and impassive at a moment when others feel their reason tottering and their brain a chaos.”
“There is nothing so easy, sir,” said she, proudly. “All that I can boast of is not to have indulged in illusions which seem to have a charm for you. You say you want explicit-ness. You shall have it. There was one condition on which I offered you my friendship and my advice. You accepted the bargain, and we were friends. After a while you came and said that you rued your compact; that you discovered your feelings for me went further; that mere friendship, as you phrased it, would not suffice—”
“I told you, rather,” broke he in, “that I wished to put that feeling to the last test, by linking your fortune with my own forever.”
“Very well, I accept that version. You offered to make me your wife, and in return, I asked you to retract your words,—to suffer our relations to continue on their old footing, nor subject me to the necessity of an explanation painful to both of us. For a while you consented; now you seem impatient at your concession, and ask me to resume the subject. Be it so, but for the last time.”
Massingbred's cheeks grew deadly pale, but he never uttered a word.
After a second's pause, she resumed: “Your affections are less engaged in this case than you think. You would make me your wife just as you would do anything else that gave a bold defiance to the world, to show a consciousness of your own power, to break down any obstacle, and make the prejudices or opinions of society give way before you. You have energy and self-esteem enough to make this succeed. Your wife—albeit the steward's daughter—the governess! would be received, invited, visited, and the rest of it; and so far as you were concerned the triumph would be complete. Now, however, turn a little attention to the other side of the medal. What is to requite me for all this courtesy on sufferance, all this mockery of consideration? Where am I to find my friendships, where even discover my duties? You only know of one kind of pride, that of station and social eminence. I can tell you there is another, loftier far,—the consciousness that no inequality of position can obliterate, what I feel and know in myself of superiority to those fine ladies whose favorable notice you would entreat for me. Smile at the vanity of this declaration if you like, sir, but, at least, own that I am consistent; for I am prouder in the independence of my present dependence than I should be in all the state of Mr. Massingbred's wife. You can see, therefore, that I could not accept this change as the great elevation you would deem it. You would be stooping to raise one who could never persuade herself that she was exalted. I am well aware that inequality of one sort or another is the condition of most marriages. The rank of one compensates for the wealth of the other. Here it is affluence and age, there it is beauty and poverty. People treat the question in a good commercial spirit, and balance the profit and loss like tradesfolk; but even in this sense our compact would be impossible, since you would endow me with what has no value in my eyes, and I, worse off still, have absolutely nothing to give in return.”
“Give me your love, dearest Kate,” cried he, “and, supported by that, you shall see that I deserve it. Believe me, it is your own proud spirit that exaggerates the difficulties that would await us in society.”
“I should scorn myself if I thought of them,” broke she in, haughtily; “and remember, sir, these are not the words of one who speaks in ignorance. I, too, have seen that great world, on which your affections are so fixed. I have mixed with it, and know it. Notwithstanding all the cant of moralists, I do not believe it to be more hollow or more heartless than other classes. Its great besetting sin is not of self-growth, for it comes of the slavish adulation offered by those beneath it,—the grovelling worship of the would-be fine folk, who would leave friends and home and hearth to be admitted even to the antechambers of the great. They who offer up this incense are in my eyes far more despicable than they who accept the sacrifice; but I would not cast my lot with either. Do not smile, sir, as if these were high-flown sentiments; they are the veriest commonplaces of one who loves commonplace, who neither seeks affections with coronets nor friendships in gold coaches, but who would still less be of that herd—mute, astonished, and awe-struck—who worship them!”
“You deem me, then, deficient in this same independence of spirit?” cried Massingbred, half indignantly.