“You told me,” said she, “that Mr. Buxton will have it, it is but a boy’s attachment; and that when you have seen other people, you will change your mind; now do try how far you can stand the effects of absence.” She said it playfully, but he was in a humor to be vexed.
“What nonsense, Maggie! You don’t care for all this delay yourself; and you take up my father’s bad reasons as if you believed them.”
“I don’t believe them; but still they may be true.”
“How should you like it, Maggie, if I urged you to go about and see something of society, and try if you could not find some one you liked better? It is more probable in your case than in mine; for you have never been from home, and I have been half over Europe.”
“You are very much afraid, are not you, Frank?” said she, her face bright with blushes, and her gray eyes smiling up at him. “I have a great idea that if I could see that Harry Bish that Edward is always talking about, I should be charmed. He must wear such beautiful waistcoats! Don’t you think I had better see him before our engagement is quite, quite final?”
But Frank would not smile. In fact, like all angry persons, he found fresh matter for offence in every sentence. She did not consider the engagement as quite final: thus he chose to understand her playful speech. He would not answer. She spoke again:
“Dear Frank, you are not angry with me, are you? It is nonsense to think that we are to go about the world, picking and choosing men and women as if they were fruit and we were to gather the best; as if there was not something in our own hearts which, if we listen to it conscientiously, will tell us at once when we have met the one of all others. There now, am I sensible? I suppose I am, for your grim features are relaxing into a smile. That’s right. But now listen to this. I think your father would come round sooner, if he were not irritated every day by the knowledge of your visits to me. If you went away, he would know that we should write to each other yet he would forget the exact time when; but now he knows as well as I do where you are when you are up here; and I fancy, from what Erminia says, it makes him angry the whole time you are away.”
Frank was silent. At last he said: “It is rather provoking to be obliged to acknowledge that there is some truth in what you say. But even if I would, I am not sure that I could go. My father does not speak to me about his affairs, as he used to do; so I was rather surprised yesterday to hear him say to Erminia (though I’m sure he meant the information for me), that he had engaged an agent.”
“Then there will be the less occasion for you to be at home. He won’t want your help in his accounts.”
“I’ve given him little enough of that. I have long wanted him to have somebody to look after his affairs. They are very complicated and he is very careless. But I believe my signature will be wanted for some new leases; at least he told me so.”