“May I ask what leads you to this supposition?”
“The strange way in which she has been brought up, spoilt and yet neglected, the daughter of a woman of rank allowed to live in a lodging-house with a paid companion; it is not the usual education of a lady, English or foreign.”
“You are right. The circumstances are strange. You are an officer, the son of a man of known honour. You will of course regard any communication I make to you on this subject as strictly and inviolably secret.”
“I hope you have no doubt of that.”
“I have not. You understand that the information I am about to give you, you are bound in honour never to use, you are to regard as never having been heard?”
“I understand that perfectly.”
“Well then, Nouna is the legitimately born daughter of an English gentleman. That, I think, is all you wish to know.”
As his tone said very decidedly that this was all he meant to tell, Lauriston professed his entire contentment, and once more took his leave. Upon the whole he was not dissatisfied with the result of his visit to the lawyers. Nothing he had heard there was inconsistent with what he had already been told about the Condesa di Valdestillas, and he began to think that the romantic circumstances in which he had met Nouna had perhaps inclined him to make mountains of mystery out of molehills of eccentricity. The only thing which now seemed to baffle all attempts at explanation was the remarkable way in which Mr. Angelo had made the simple statement concerning Nouna’s birth. As, however, it was impossible to learn the reason of this, Lauriston gave up trying to guess it, and assured of the prosperity of his suit, fell into a lover’s dream, picturing to himself the joys of moulding this passionate pliable young creature, under the influence of his love, into an ideal wife, good as an English woman, fascinating as a French one, free from the narrowmindedness of the one and the frivolity of the other, and with a passionate warmth of feeling unknown to either. But as he recalled the grace of her movements, the delicate beauty of her face and form, her cooing voice and caressing gestures, the intoxication of his passion grew stronger than his efforts of reason and imagination. Why should he not marry her now, as she wished, as he longed to do? He could then educate her himself, guard her, as no schoolmistress, or guardian other than a husband could do, from all influences that were not noble, and pure, and good; whatever she might have done in imagination, in reality she had not lived in anything more like a palace than that one room, used for a few weeks, avowedly fitted up as a show-room, and furnished with treasures that were only borrowed. True, if he married her now, she would have to live in London lodgings still, and without the alleviations afforded by painted ceilings and silk-hung walls. But he would find for her head a softer pillow than any embroidered cushion, and soothe her with a lullaby sweeter than the sound of any fountain that ever flowed.
And then in the midst of this fine frenzy, dull common sense put in a word, and showed him the reverse side of the medal; a young husband with ambition checked, and study made impossible by growing debt and premature responsibility; a young wife ill-dressed, ill-amused, with no companions of her own sex, perhaps a mother before she had left off being a child, her warm nature chilled by poverty and disappointment, her love for her husband changing into contempt or hatred. No, it was not to be thought of. He must find her a home where he could see her constantly, and keep her under the influence of his own thoughts, and of his own love, until the day when he could bring her to a little home such as an English lady of simple tastes could be happy in.
With an inspiration born of these thoughts, he remembered with a shock that he might have come westward third class on the underground, instead of in the well-appointed Forder hansom which he had chosen so carefully. He thrust up his umbrella, told the driver to stop, jumped out, paid him, and continued on foot from Chancery Lane, along Fleet Street, till he came to the office of a military paper the editor of whom, with the friendliness of editors to such writers as are not dependent upon writing, had asked him to contribute certain articles on a subject in which Lauriston was well-known to be proficient. He had sufficient acumen to let the editor think, when he expressed his readiness to undertake the work at once, that his object was fame rather than coin; and having settled by what date the first instalment was to be ready, and ignored the matter of terms with a handsome indifference he did not feel, Lauriston left the office and returned to the West End on foot.