“I did not like,” said Margaret, hastily, “his way of advocating what he knew to be wrong—so glaringly wrong—even in jest.”
“But it was very clever. How every word told! Did you remember the happy epithets?”
“Yes.”
“And despise them, you would like to add. Pray don’t scruple, though he is my friend.”
“There! that is the exact tone in you, that”—she stopped short.
He listened for a moment to see if she would finish her sentence; but she only reddened, and turned away; before she did so, however, she heard him say, in a very low, clear voice,—
“If my tones, or modes of thought, are what you dislike, will you do me the justice to tell me so, and so give me the chance of learning to please you.”
All these weeks there was no intelligence of Mr. Bell’s going to Milton. He had spoken of it at Helstone as of a journey which he might have to take in a very short time from then; but he must have transacted his business by writing. Margaret thought, ere now, and she knew that if he could, he would avoid going to a place which he disliked, and moreover would little understand the secret importance which she affixed to the explanation that could only be given by word of mouth. She knew that he would feel that it was necessary that it should be done; but whether in summer, autumn, or winter, it would signify very little. It was now August, and there had been no mention of the Spanish journey to which he had alluded to Edith, and Margaret tried to reconcile herself to the fading away of this illusion.
But one morning she received a letter, saying that next week he meant to come up to town; he wanted to see her about a plan which he had in his head; and, moreover, he intended to treat himself to a little doctoring, as he had begun to come round to her opinion, that it would be pleasanter to think that his health was more in fault than he, when he found himself irritable and cross. There was altogether a tone of forced cheerfulness in the letter, as Margaret noticed afterwards; but at the time her attention was taken up by Edith’s exclamations.
“Coming up to town! Oh dear! and I am so worn out by the heat that I don’t believe I have strength enough in me for another dinner. Besides, everybody has left but our dear stupid selves, who can’t settle where to go to. There would be nobody to meet him.”