“I suppose I ought to insist,” said Mrs. Berrien, in a low tone. “It is a shame if I do not. And yet—you have put me as well as Aimée in a position for which I shall never forgive you!” turning sharply to her daughter—“you have made it almost impossible for me to say what must be done. I should like to see you married to Mr. Meredith, but I shall always feel that such a marriage is bought too dearly if it can only be bought by putting your young cousin in a position which may throw a cloud over the brilliant prospects of her life.”
“Mamma, if you will excuse me, that is all nonsense!” said Fanny. “How can it possibly throw a cloud over Aimée’s prospects—which I heartily wish were mine!—that one or two or three people believe her to have had a youthful love affair with Lennox Kyrle? Lennox is a very nice person—though you would never believe it—and he may be a famous man some day.”
“It is you who are talking nonsense,” said Mrs. Berrien, curtly. “It is not necessary to discuss Mr. Kyrle. Fortunately, he is a gentleman—there is that much to be said for him; otherwise we will put him aside. You say that it can not injure Aimée’s prospects to be supposed by two or three people to have had a youthful love affair with him. In the first place, what is known to two or three people will certainly be known to many more; and, in the second place, it is a great injury to any girl, in the opinion of people whose opinions are worth consideration, to have had any such affair, much less to be supposed to have been on the verge of an elopement. As I have said, it would be bad enough if Aimée had remained insignificant; but now, with her prospects, I can not endure it!”
“Then my prospects are at an end, and I might as well bury myself at once!” cried Fanny, who began to fear that her mother was seriously in earnest. “It is not only that I shall lose Mr. Meredith—for of course there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it—but I shall be hopelessly compromised, and I can not even fall back upon Lennox Kyrle, for he has gone off in a rage, swearing that he is done with me forever. So you might as well make up your mind, mamma, that I shall be left on your hands.”
“Fanny, you distract me!” said her mother. “Do you propose that I shall let this thing go on, and suffer Aimée, who does not know what she is doing, to start in life with this story fastened upon her?”
“Aimée knows perfectly well what she is doing,” said Fanny, “and if she does not mind why should you? As for her changed position, when people have money they can do exactly what they please, and the world never dares to find fault. That is my experience. But here she comes herself. Ask her what she wishes. I promise to abide by her decision.”
It was indeed Aimée, who entered like an angel of peace. She never looked more childlike or gentle, yet her simplicity now as ever was the simplicity of good sense, and as she came forward she glanced appealingly from the anxious daughter to the distracted mother.
“I was in the next room; I could not help hearing, Aunt Alice,” she said. “I have come to thank you for thinking so much of me, and to beg you to let things be as they are.”
“My dear child, it is generous of you to desire it,” said Mrs. Berrien, “but I do not feel that I have a right to accept such a sacrifice. I must think of your future.”
“Have you not always thought of me?” said the girl, coming forward and in her earnestness kneeling down by her aunt’s chair. “You know, and I know, that nobody else has thought of me at all. And will you not let me repay you in the least for your kindness and your thought? It is such a little thing that I want you to let me do. Fanny is right. What difference does it make whether two or three people believe that I was going to elope with Mr. Kyrle? It can not hurt me; but if it were known of her it would hurt her very much. I saw Mr. Meredith this morning, and I am certain that he would never forgive her if he learned the truth now. It is too late. You can make things worse, Aunt Alice, but you can not make them any better now.”