"My dear," he said to her, as soon as they were alone together, "you know that the arrangement between Brian and yourself meets with my warmest approval. But it will be of very little good to me personally, unless you mean to use your influence—for you can no longer say that you possess none—to induce him to yield to my wishes. Unless he does so, he can expect nothing from me in the future. And that I should regret for your sake now as well as his."
"You are very kind," said Marion, who understood all that was implied in this. "Be certain that if he does not yield to your wishes, it will not be my fault. I shall use all the influence I possess to induce him to do so."
"In that case I have no fear," said the old man, gallantly. "Who could resist you?"
A little while before Marion would have echoed this with a profound conviction of her own irresistible power; but now, though she did not dissent from it, she had a lurking fear that Brian Earle might not prove so elastic in her hands as his uncle hoped. As yet, by tacit consent, the subject of their future life had been avoided; but she knew that the time would come when it must be discussed, and she said to herself with passionate resolution that he should not throw away the fortune which was offered him, if it were in her power to prevent it.
Had this resolution needed a spur, Mrs. Singleton's congratulations would have given it. "I hope that you will be very happy," she said; "and I think it is very good for me to hope it, for you step into my place. Brian will not go abroad now."
"We have not settled that as yet," replied Marion, who detected a questioning tone in the last assertion.
"I think that, in your place, I should settle it as soon as possible," said Mrs. Singleton. "It will be pleasanter for all parties. Although, of course, Brian's decision is a foregone conclusion."
"You not only hope, you believe the contrary," thought Marion; "but I will show you that you are mistaken."
Meanwhile Earle, unconscious of the struggle before him, was thinking how much he had misjudged Marion in believing her so worldly, since, knowing his definite decision with regard to his life, she was yet willing to share that life. The declaration which he had made was entirely unpremeditated; but, once made, he did not regret it. How indeed was it possible to regret that which brought immediately so much happiness to himself and to Marion? And it was too much to expect, perhaps, that he should ask whether or not this happiness rested on a very substantial basis—whether there were not elements in it certain to produce discord as time went on. All that was hard, haughty and worldly in Marion seemed, for the time being, to have disappeared. Helen herself could hardly have seemed more gentle and tender to the man she loved.
On the Sunday following their betrothal, he asked her if she would go with him to church, and she readily assented. "I always liked Catholicity," she said, as they took their way thither; "and I always felt that if there was truth in any religion, it was in that. All the others are but poor shams and imitations of it, and I have had an instinctive scorn of them ever since I knew anything of the old faith. I am glad, therefore, that you are a Catholic."