“No. I have not the honour of pleasing her as I am. I can change for no one. Do not grieve, Cherito mio, I shall forget all when I show you Seville, and I will teach you to forget too. I take the best of my English home with me when I take my brother.”
He took Cheriton’s hands in his as he spoke, with a gesture, half playful, half tender. The response was cruelly disappointing. Cherry withdrew a little and said, in a tone of extreme coldness,—
“In that case Virginia is perfectly right. I quite understand her meaning. But it will be a great vexation to my father that your engagement should be broken for such a cause.”
“My father cannot complain. I have obeyed him,” said Alvar. “But I shall go and tell him that the proposals he so honourably made me will be unnecessary.” He went away as he spoke, and Jack, who had been listening silently, exclaimed,—
“By Jove! he doesn’t know what he’s in for now?”
“Oh,” cried Cherry, “it is intolerable! If they had married, she would never have found out his coolness! It is most unlucky.”
“Well,” said Jack, “I don’t know. Alvar worships you, and has ways that suit you, yet you can’t understand each other. Alvar is altogether different from us. He is outside our planetary system, and always will be. I’d like my wife to belong to the same species as myself.”
“But the occasion is so annoying,” said Cherry. “Why must they order me off in this way—or why couldn’t I have held my tongue about it? Oh, Alvar is the wise man after all.”
“You’ll get well,” said Jack gruffly.
“Well, I’ll try. But—” he paused; but the thought in his mind was that the home ties had regained their power now that he believed himself likely to leave them for ever.