Dorothy's Double. Volume 2 (of 3)

by G. A. Henty

The awkwardness of the rejection had long since passed, they had met and danced together a score of times since. She had said when she rejected him, 'Let us be friends, Captain Armstrong; I like you very much, though I don't want to marry you;' and they had been friends, and had met and chatted just as if that interview had not taken place. The only allusion he had ever made to it had been when they met for the first time after her engagement had been announced, and he had said, 'So Halliburn is to be the lucky man, Miss Hawtrey. I don't think it quite fair that he should have all the good things of life,' and she had replied, 'There are good things for us all, Captain Armstrong, if we do but look for them, and not, like children, set our minds on what we can't get.' 'I think I would rather see you marry him than most people, Miss Hawtrey, perhaps because he is altogether unlike myself.'

She had made no answer at the time, but had thought afterwards of what he had said. Yes, the two men were very unlike and there was, no doubt, something in what Captain Armstrong had said. She thought that if she loved a man she could bear better to see him marry a woman altogether unlike herself in every respect than one who resembled her closely, though perhaps she could hardly explain to herself why this should be so.

They were a merry party on board the steamer going down the lake, and the new comers took rooms at the same hotel as the Hawtreys.

'Well, what do you mean to do, Armstrong?' Fitzwarren asked, as they strolled out to smoke a cigar by the lake after the rest of the party had gone to bed. 'You know what I mean. You told me the other day about your affair with Miss Hawtrey.'

'I should not have said anything about it,' the other returned, 'if I had had any idea that her engagement with Halliburn would come to nothing. We had been talking over that business of hers, and I expressed my opinion pretty strongly as to Halliburn's behaviour to her in public and said that I wondered she stood it. Then getting heated I was ass enough to say that had I been in his position, I should have behaved in a different sort of way, and generally expressed my contempt for him. Then you asked why hadn't I put myself in his position, and I told you it was no fault of mine, for that I had tried and failed, when you made some uncomplimentary remarks as to her taste, and we nearly had a row.

'You ask me what I am going to do. Of course, if we had not heard that news when we got to Milan I should have gone this afternoon, directly we arrived here, to take my place in the first diligence that started, no matter where. Now I shall stay and try my luck again. It is quite evident by her manner that she never really cared for the fellow, and that this breaking off of the engagement is a great relief to her. I never saw her in higher spirits, and I am sure there was nothing forced about them. I am sure she would not have accepted him unless she thought she liked him; she is not the sort of girl to marry for position alone, though I dare say if it had not been for the other business she would have married him, and would have believed all her life that he was a very fine fellow. Well, you see, he came very badly out of it, and showed himself to her in his true light as a selfish, cold-hearted, miserable little prig, and, you see, directly her eyes were opened she threw him over. So it seems to me that there is a chance.'

'One could not have met her again under more favourable circumstances. One gets ten times the opportunities travelling about together that one does in a London season. However, I think my chance is worth very little. She said honestly that she liked me very much before, and I could see it really pained her to refuse me. I don't think it was Halliburn who stood in the way, although he was attentive at that time.'

'I should have thought that would have been all in your favour if she acknowledged that she liked you very much, and was cut up at refusing you. Why should she not like you better when she sees more of you?'

'Because, Fitzwarren, it was not the right sort of liking. We were, if I may so express it, chums; and I am afraid we shall never get beyond that on her side. You see, a woman wants something ideal. Now there is nothing ideal about me. I suppose I may say I am a decent, pleasant sort of fellow, but there are no what you may call possibilities about me. Now Halliburn, you see, was full of possibilities. He had the reputation of being somehow a superior sort of young man—and there is no doubt he is clever in his way—he will probably some day be in the Cabinet, and the idea of one's husband being a ruler of men is fascinating to the female mind. I suppose there was no woman ever married a curate who had not a private belief that he would some day be an archbishop. Now there is not a shadow of this sort of thing about me. I may possibly get to command the regiment some day, and then when I have held the command for the usual time I shall be shelved, and shall, I suppose, retire gracefully to my estate in Yorkshire. I suppose I am good enough for the ruck of girls, but I feel sure that I am not up to Dorothy Hawtrey's ideal, and that though this may end by our being greater friends than before, I doubt whether there is much chance of anything else coming of it.'

'It is no use your running yourself down in that way, Armstrong. When a man stands six foot two and is one of the best-looking fellows in London, and one of the most popular men, and is not only a captain of the Blues, but has a fine estate down in Yorkshire, he ought to have a fair chance with almost any girl.'