“I told him my story,” she replied. “Perhaps he gathered from it that, having once obeyed the commands of my parents, I should take care ever after to act on my own judgment. He talked to-day about seeing you; I told him that there was no need.”
“Why should there be no need if he means to run straight? I would see that he meant right before I gave my consent. I don’t want you to be fooled by him or any other man even if he was a lord. You’re not in his station in life, and you know it. If he was making up to some one in his own station he would have to see her father first. What is there to laugh at?”
She had become rosy, and had given a laugh when he made use of the old phrase; but she could scarcely explain to him that her laugh was due to her recalling the sequel to her introduction of the same phrase a few hours earlier.
“I can’t tell you how funny—I mean how—how—no; all that I can tell you is that I have accepted Jack Wingfield and that I mean to marry him and be a good wife to him.”
“You can say that—you can talk about marrying another man before two months have passed! I’m ashamed of you.”
At first she did not know what he meant by his reference to two months—two months’ since what? Then all at once it flashed upon her that he had in his mind the incident that should have been appropriately commemorated (according to his idea) by widow’s weeds.
“I think that we had better not return to that particular matter,” she said. “We can never look at it from the same standpoint. I married once to please you and my mother; I will marry now to please myself.”
“Decency is decency, all the same, whatever your notions may be,” said he. “No daughter of mine with my consent will become engaged to a man so as to outrage every sense of decency. A year is the very shortest space of time that must elapse—even a year is too short for good taste.”
“A year and more has passed since you gave me to that man—the man you choose for me—a year since I outraged a sense that is very much higher than your sense of decency by promising to honour a wretch who was trying to accomplish my dishonour.”
“What do you mean, Priscilla? Didn’t he marry you honestly in the church? Give the man his due. I doubt if this young Wingfield’s intentions are so honourable.”