Mr. Dormer-Smith was extremely anxious not to offend or disgust Mr. Bragg. To have a man of that wealth in the family might be the making of all their fortunes. Already Mr. Bragg's advice and assistance had profited him. He and his wife had even privately reckoned on Mr. Bragg's doing something handsome (in a testamentary way) for their younger children. May was very fond of her cousins, and what would a few thousands be to Mr. Bragg? Now the unexpected news which met him broke up all these glittering hopes, as a thaw melts the frost-diamonds.
"You must speak with her, Frederick. I have said all I can, and I really am not equal to another scene," said Pauline.
She had subsided into an attitude of calm despondency, and seemed to be supported chiefly by the sense of her own unappreciated merits. She did not mention that she had already written a private and confidential letter to Mr. Bragg, and despatched it by special messenger to the hotel where he usually stayed when in London.
Mr. Bragg had no town house, and the choosing and furnishing of a suitable mansion for him and his bride had been one of the rewards of virtue which Mrs. Dormer-Smith had, for some time past, been anticipating for herself. May was so young and inexperienced, and Mr. Bragg—dear, good, rich man!—had so little knowledge of the fashionable world, that Pauline confidently expected to be for some years to come the presiding genius of the elegant entertainments to which they would invite only the very best society. For—giving the rein to her fancy—Pauline had resolved that Mr. and Mrs. Bragg were to be extremely exclusive. A well-born girl who, without fortune or title, had succeeded in marrying a millionnaire, might surely—if there were any poetical justice at all in the world—indulge herself in the refined pleasure of social selection, and quietly decline to receive those doubtful "Borderers" who made society, as Mrs. Griffin often complained, so sadly mixed!
All this was not to be relinquished without a struggle. Mrs. Dormer-Smith would do her duty to the last. Duty had commanded her to make an immediate appeal to Mr. Bragg not to take May's answer as final; but duty did not, she considered, require her to tell her husband anything about it until she saw how it turned out.
"You must see her, Frederick," repeated Mrs. Dormer-Smith. And Frederick accordingly sent for May to come and speak with him.
He awaited her in the drawing-room; and when May entered the room her eye fell on the easy-chair which Mr. Bragg had placed for her, standing out just where she had left it. The whole scene came back to her mind as vividly as if she saw it in a picture before her bodily eyes; and the colour rose to her forehead.
Her uncle went to her, and took her hand kindly. "Well, May," said he, "what is all this I hear?" He was leading her towards the armchair; but May avoided it, and took another seat, and Mr. Dormer-Smith dropped into the armchair opposite to her, himself.
In considering what could have been the motives which had induced her to reject Mr. Bragg, he had prepared himself to listen to some—perhaps foolishly—romantic talk on May's part. Mr. Bragg certainly could not, by any stretch of friendship, be considered romantic. But Uncle Frederick would try to show his niece how much sounder and solider a foundation for domestic happiness Mr. Bragg was able to offer her than any amount of the qualities which go to make up a young lady's hero of romance.
What he was not at all prepared for was May's saying earnestly, as she leant forward with clasped hands, "Oh, Uncle Frederick what is all this I hear? My dear, good grandmother has been impoverishing herself to pay for keeping me in London! Why did you not tell me the truth? Nothing should have induced me to accept such a sacrifice!"