“Of course it must come between us,” she said in a stifled voice; “and you knew that all through.”
Mr. Hawkins’ engagement was a painful necessity about which he affaired himself as little as possible. He recognised it as a certain and not disagreeable road to paying his debts, which might with good luck be prolonged till he got his company, and, latterly, it had fallen more than ever into the background. That it should interfere with his amusements in any way made it an impertinence of a wholly intolerable kind.
“It shall not come between us!” he burst out; “I don’t care what happens, I won’t give you up! I give you my honour I never cared twopence about her—I’ve never thought of her since I first saw you—I’ve thought of no one but you.”
His hot, stammering words were like music to her, but that staunchness of soul that was her redeeming quality still urged her to opposition.
“It’s no good your going on like this. You know you’re going to marry her. Let me go.”
But Mr. Hawkins was not in the habit of being baulked of anything on which he had set his heart.
“No, I will not let you go,” he said, drawing her towards him with bullying tenderness. “In the first place, you’re not able to stand, and in the second place, I’m not going to marry anybody but you.”
He spoke with a certainty that convinced himself; the certainty of a character that does not count the cost either for itself or for others; and, in the space of a kiss, her distrust was left far behind her as a despicable thing.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
Nearly three weeks had gone by since Mrs. Beattie’s party, and as Charlotte Mullen walked slowly along the road towards Rosemount one afternoon, her eyes fixed on the square toes of her boots, and her hands, as was her custom, in the pockets of her black jacket, she meditated agreeably upon recent events. Of these perhaps the pleasantest was Mr. Hawkins’ departure to Hythe, for a musketry course, which had taken place somewhat unexpectedly a fortnight ago. He was a good-for-nothing young limb, and engagement or no engagement it was a good job he was out of the place; and, after all, Francie had not seemed to mind. Almost equally satisfactory was the recollection of that facetious letter to Christopher Dysart, in which she had so playfully reminded him of the ancient promise to photograph the Tally Ho cats, and hoped that she and her cousin would not come under that category. Its success had even been surprising, for not only had Christopher come and spent a long afternoon in that difficult enterprise, but had come again more than once, on pretexts that had appeared to Charlotte satisfactorily flimsy, and had apparently set aside what she knew to be his repugnance to herself. That he should lend Francie “John Inglesant” and Rossetti’s Poems, made Charlotte laugh in her sleeve. She had her own very sound opinion of her cousin’s literary capacity, and had no sympathy for the scientific interest felt by a philosopher in the evolution of a nascent soul. Christopher’s manner did not, it is true, coincide with her theory of a lover, which was crude, and founded on taste rather than experience, but she had imagination enough to recognise that Christopher, in love-making, as in most other things, would pursue methods unknown to her.