Jack Portland still kept his glass fixed in his eye and stared insolently at her. He had elevated his brows once or twice as she proceeded with her speech, and shrugged his shoulders, as if she were not worth a second thought of his; and as she mentioned her lover’s name he smiled scornfully and waved his hand.
‘Pray don’t take it in this fashion,’ he said, as she concluded. ‘I am sure Ilfracombe would tell you it was not worth making such a fuss about. As for insulting you, that is the last idea in my mind. I admire you far too much. Most ladies would, I flatter myself, have regarded my offer in a totally different light; indeed, no reasonable person could say that it was an insult, especially from a man of my birth and position.’
‘It becomes an insult,’ she answered hotly, ‘when you address your proposals to the wife of another man, and that man your greatest friend.’
‘Perhaps it would, if she were his wife, or ever likely to be so,’ returned Mr Portland, with a sneer.
‘But I am, I am,’ cried Nell passionately, stamping her feet, ‘and each fresh word you say is a fresh affront. People with your low conceptions of life cannot understand the strength of the tie between Ilfracombe and myself, because it has not been ratified by the law. You are not honourable enough to see that that very fact renders it still more binding on a man of honour. Ilfracombe would die sooner than part from me, and I would die a thousand deaths sooner than part from him. Our lives are bound up in each other. And even if it were not so, I could never exchange him for you. Now, do you understand, or must I say it all over again?’
Under the sting of what his proposal had suggested to her, she was blazing away at him with twice her natural ferocity. At that moment she hated him with such a deadly hatred for having presumed to remind her of the real position she held, that she could gladly have killed him.
‘Pray say no more!’ exclaimed Mr Portland, as he prepared to leave her, ‘you’ve said more than enough, my pretty tigress, already; but the day may come when you will regret that you treated my offer with so much disdain. Young men’s fancies do not last for ever, my dear, and a good, sound settlement is worth many vows. If Ilfracombe ever tires of you (or rather let me say when he tires of you), you will remember my words. Meanwhile, luckily for me, there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it. So good-bye, my handsome fury. Won’t you give me one kiss before we part, just to show there’s no ill feeling? No? Well, I must try to do without it then, for the present at least, and hope for better luck next time. Remember me to old Ilfracombe when next you write. Ta-ta.’
He lingered near her for a moment, as though expecting she would raise her eyes or put out her hand; but Nell did neither, and, after a while, he turned on his heel, and, insolently humming a tune, went on his way.
As soon as Miss Llewellyn heard the hall door close after him, she rushed up to her own room, and, after locking the door, threw herself on the sofa, face downwards, and sobbed and cried in the strength of her wounded feelings and the terrible doubt which Mr Portland’s words had seemed to imply. The servants came knocking at her door, and worrying her to come down to luncheon, which was getting cold, in the dining-room, but she would not stir nor speak to any of them.
It was the first time since her acquaintance with the Earl of Ilfracombe that the untenability of her illegal position had been brought so forcibly before her, and she felt all the more angry because she had no right to feel angry at all. She believed implicitly in her lover. She had accepted his assurances of fidelity as gospel truth, and she was passionately indignant and sorely outraged because Mr Portland had not considered the tie between her and his friend as inviolable as she did. And yet she was not Lord Ilfracombe’s wife. Beautiful Nell Llewellyn knew this only too well as she lay on the couch, sobbing as if her heart would break. Say what women will in these days of misrule about the charms of liberty, and the horror of being enchained for life, there is a comfortable sense of security in knowing oneself to be honourably united to the man one loves; to have no need of concealment or mis-stating facts; no necessity of avoiding one’s fellow men; no fear of encountering insult from one’s inferiors in birth and morals, because one does not wear a wedding-ring upon one’s finger—that insignia of possession which is so insignificant and yet so powerful. What would poor Nell Llewellyn not have given to have had one upon her finger now?