CHAPTER XXVI
She threw herself upon the sofa in her boudoir and tried to face the situation which presented itself to her. She tried to think what she could do to escape from the toils which had been woven round her—woven with the appropriate phrases that went to the declaring of a father’s blessing, and the frivolous inconsequence of a mother’s acquiescence.
She felt for a moment as if she were a prisoner in a strong room, with bars across the windows and bolts upon the door. She looked, as an imprisoned girl might, first to the door then to the windows, as if she had a hope that, by some accidental neglect of precaution on the part of her gaoler a chance might be left for her of escape one way or another.
She threw back her head and stared at the ceiling. She felt that she had no chance. The door had its bolts drawn and no one of the bars across the window was defective. She was a prisoner without means of escape.
She felt hopeless facing such cleverness as that which Ernest Clifton had shown her he had at his command. A fortnight ago he had given her to understand that he considered it beyond the bounds of possibility that he should obtain the consent of her father to their engagement—he had certainly had no hope of winning her father’s consent for if he had had such a hope he would only have required to tell her so when she had met him at that garden party and had asked him to free her from her promise made to him in the autumn. Yes, all he need have said was this:
“I am going to run the chance of getting your father’s consent, and if I am not successful we can then talk as you are talking, of throwing over our compact.”
That was all he need have said, if he had had any expectation of winning over her father; but he had said nothing of the sort; and yet he had, by his own cleverness—by some mystery of adroitness of which she was ignorant—by some strange trick—she was sure it was a trick, though she knew nothing about it—gained the acquiescence of her father in their compact, and his cheerful forgiveness for the deception of the past.
What could she do in the face of such cleverness as this? How could she hope to combat it? Would it not be ridiculous for such a girl as she to strive against such a man as he? Would it not be better for her to submit to the inevitable with good grace?
But had she not already submitted to it? She had been dumb in the presence of her father, so overwhelmed as she was with surprise at the first words of the announcement of his forgiveness; and she had thus given him to understand that she was extremely grateful—grateful to a point of complete extinction of the power of expressing her gratitude—to him for his more than fatherly appreciation of her dearest hopes. And as for her mother—she had allowed her mother to go so far as to suggest that she was pretending to be tired in order to be at home if her lover—her lover—were to call.
Well, she had made a fool of herself—so much was certain. That secret engagement was an act of folly that had to be paid for. It seemed as if no power was strong enough to show her how she could evade the supreme penalty which that act carried with it. Yes, she had undoubtedly made a fool of herself.