"I--I hope not," she said, rather incoherently. "I--I think not. You are an artist and an author, you know." (How ashamed George felt, how abashed in the presence of this self-deluding innocence of hers!) "And I, as well as all the world, shall hear of you."
"You, as well as all the world," he repeated, in a dreamy tone. "Well, perhaps so. I will try to think so, and to hope it will be--"
He stopped; the gentleman's nature in him still existing, still ready at call, notwithstanding his degradation, withheld him from presuming on the position in which he found himself, and in which the girl's innocent impulsiveness had placed her. To him, with his knowledge of who she was, and who he was, with the curious relation of severance which existed between them, the sort of intimacy which had sprung up had not so much strangeness as it externally exhibited, and he had to remind himself that she did not share that knowledge, and therefore stood on a different level to his, in the matter. He determined to get off the dangerous ground, and there was a convincing proof in that determination that the tide had turned for the young man, that he had indeed resolved upon the better way. His revenge upon his stepfather lay ready to his hand; the unconscious girl made it plain to him that he had excited a strange and strong interest in her. It was not a bad initiation of the prodigal's project of reform that he renounced that revenge, and turned away from the temptation to improve his chance advantage into the establishment of an avowed mutual interest. This step he took by saying, gaily, "Then I have your permission to send you my first work, Miss Carruthers, and you promise it a place in that grand old library I had a glimpse of yesterday?"
A little shade of something like disappointment crossed Clare's sunny face. The sudden transition in his tone jarred with her feelings of curiosity, romance, and flattered vanity. For Clare had her meed of that quality, like other women and men, and had never had it so pleasantly gratified as on the present occasion. But she had too much good breeding to be pertinacious on any subject, and too much delicacy of perception to fail in taking the hint which the alternation in George's manner conveyed. So there was no further allusion to the sprig of myrtle or to the future probability of a disclosure; but the two walked on together, and talked of books, pictures, and the toils and triumphs of a literary life (George, to do him justice, not affecting a larger share in them than was really his), until they neared Clare's destination. The footpath which they had followed had led them by a gentle rise in the ground to the brow of a little hill, similar to that from which George had seen his mother's carriage approach Amherst on the preceding day, but from the opposite end of the town. Immediately under the brow of this hill, and approached by the path, which inclined towards its trim green gate, stood a neat small cottage, in a square bit of garden, turning its red-brick vine-covered side to the road beneath. When George saw this dwelling, he knew his brief spell of enjoyment was over.
"That is the cottage," said Clare, and he had the consolation of observing that there was no particular elation in her voice or in her face. "Sir Thomas built it for its present tenant."
"Shall you be going back to the Sycamores alone, Miss Carruthers?" asked George, in the most utterly irrelevant manner. He had a wild notion of asking leave to wait for her, and escort her home. Again Clare blushed as she replied hurriedly:
"No, I shall not. My aunt is to pick me up here in the carriage, on her way to the town, and I return to Poynings this evening. I have been away a fortnight."
George longed to question her concerning life at Poynings, longed to mention his mother's name, or to say something to the girl that would lead her to mention it; but the risk was too great, and he refrained.
"Indeed! and when do you return to the Sycamores?" was all he said.
"It is quite uncertain," she replied. "I fancy my uncle means to go to London for part of the season, but we don't quite know yet; he never says much about his plans." She stopped abruptly, as if conscious that she was not conveying a very pleasing impression of her uncle. George understood her, and correctly, to refer to Mr. Carruthers.