“Confessed!” echoed Florimel’s pride, but she restrained her tongue.
“It explains much,” she said, with a sort of judicial relief. “There has been a great change upon you since then. Mind I only say explains. It could never justify such behaviour as yours— no, not if you had been my true brother. There is some excuse, I daresay, to be made for your ignorance and inexperience. No doubt the discovery turned your head. Still I am at a loss to understand how you could imagine that sort of—of—that sort of thing gave you any right over me!”
“Love has its rights, my lady,” said Malcolm.
Again her eyes flashed and her cheek flushed. “I cannot permit you to talk so to me. You must not fancy such things are looked upon in our position with the same indifference as in yours. You must not flatter yourself that you can be allowed to cherish the same feelings towards me as if—as if—you were really my brother. I am sorry for you, Malcolm, as I said already; but you have altogether missed your mark if you think that can alter facts, or shelter you from the consequences of presumption.”
Again she turned away. Malcolm’s heart was sore for her. How grievously she had sunk from the Lady Florimel of the old days! It was all from being so constantly with that wretched woman and her vile nephew. Had he been able to foresee such a rapid declension, he would have taken her away long ago, and let come of her feelings what might. He had been too careful over them.
“Indeed,” Florimel resumed, but this time without turning towards him, “I do not see how things can possibly, after what you have told me, remain as they are. I should not feel at all comfortable in having one about me who would be constantly supposing he had rights, and reflecting on my father for fancied injustice, and whom I fear nothing could prevent from taking liberties. It is very awkward indeed, Malcolm—very awkward! But it is your own fault that you are so changed, and I must say I should not have expected it of you. I should have thought you had more good sense and regard for me. If I were to tell the world why I wanted to keep you, people would but shrug their shoulders and tell me to get rid of you; and if I said nothing, there would always be something coming up that required explanation. Besides, you would for ever be trying to convert me to one or other of your foolish notions. I hardly know what to do. I will consult—my friends on the subject. And yet I would rather they knew nothing of it. My father you see——” She paused. “If you had been my real brother it would have been different.”
“I am your real brother, my lady, and I have tried to behave like one ever since I knew it.”
“Yes; you have been troublesome. I have always understood that brothers were troublesome. I am told they are given to taking upon them the charge of their sisters’ conduct. But I would not have even you think me heartless. If you had been a real brother, of course I should have treated you differently.”
“I don’t doubt it, my lady, for everything would have been different then. I should have been the Marquis of Lossie, and you would have been Lady Florimel Colonsay. But it would have made little difference in one thing: I could not have loved you better than I do now— if only you would believe it, my lady!”
The emotion of Malcolm, evident in his voice as he said this, seemed to touch her a little.