This was certainly very plain speech, and contained a kernel of truth which struck Kyrle sharply. “If I have held money in scorn,” he said, “it has only been with regard to myself. I know well what its value is in the eyes of others. And it is true that I think too much of my own pride, perhaps; but this is a point on which I have always been peculiarly sensitive—”
“As if I did not know that!” she interposed, with a note of that curious old resentment against his culpable indifference to mercenary considerations in her voice. “You were so afraid of being suspected of paying court to your uncle, that you behaved outrageously to him. Oh, it was a very fine thing to show your spirit, your independence, your scorn of groveling souls that cared for money! So you lost a fortune which a little compliance with an old man’s whims would have secured to you; and now you are enjoying the fine results thereof, and preparing to be guilty of the same folly, only in an aggravated form, over again!”
Some people, leaning in the windows of one of the tall, old houses across the canal, and watching the little scene curiously, remarked among themselves that the pretty foreign lady seemed to be a terrible scold, and that the poor man—her husband, probably—had little to say under her rating. “He has deserved it, no doubt,” remarked one woman, enlightened by her own experience. “It is a case of jealousy, most likely.”
“What a vindictive creature you are!” Kyrle was meanwhile saying, with a smile. “Why can not my old follies—for which, as you justly observe, I am now suffering—be allowed to rest? I grant you that I was foolish, impracticable, full of pride—”
“As you are yet,” she interpolated.
“Granted again. But a fortune-hunter—to be suspected of seeking a woman for her wealth—that is something I should feel very deeply. Yet Miss Vincent is indeed worth so much more than her fortune, that to speak of it in connection with her seems an insult. If she were only rid of it—”
“But she is not,” said practical Fanny; “and you can hardly expect her to give it or throw it away in order to oblige you.”
“I expect nothing,” he answered impatiently. “And I do not understand why you should talk as if I had only to put out my hand and grasp a prize which I am sure would, under any circumstances, be far beyond my reach.”
“Your humility does you credit,” she said. “But in my opinion there is no reason why you should not grasp the prize if you would only resolve to make the effort. It is not on your own account that I urge you in this manner,” she added, quickly, “but because I want to rescue Aimée. You do not understand, and she hardly understands, in what a bondage she is held. If those people can prevent it, she will never marry anybody, unless it be Percy Joscelyn. By every possible means they keep suitors away from her; and if I had not been here, you would never have been allowed to approach her near enough to bow to her. Through me you have a chance that no other man has had before. But if you are so blind, if you throw it away for a mere scruple, if you think more of your own pride than of saving her—then you may go! I have nothing more to say to you.”
She rose as she uttered the last words, and Kyrle, who had listened to the latter part of her speech with amazement, could scarcely believe that it was Fanny Meredith who was leaving him with such an air of dignity. He rose too, and made a step after her. There was a sensible quickening of interest among the heads at the windows opposite, as the scene promised to become more dramatic. “It must be a lover’s quarrel,” some one suggested. “If he were her husband he would not follow her.”