“Very well, Evan. Then—but don’t be sensitive. Oh, how sensitive you are! I see it all now. This is what we shall have to do. We shall have to speak to Mama to-day—this morning. Drummond has told me he is going to speak to her, and we must be first. That’s decided. I begged a couple of hours. You must not be offended with Drummond. He does it out of pure affection for us, and I can see he’s right—or, at least, not quite wrong. He ought, I think, to know that he cannot change me. Very well, we shall win Mama by what we do. My mother has ten times my wits, and yet I manage her like a feather. I have only to be honest and straightforward. Then Mama will gain over Papa. Papa, of course, won’t like it. He’s quiet and easy, but he likes blood, but he also likes peace better; and I think he loves Rosey—as well as somebody—almost? Look, dear, there is our seat where we—where you would rob me of my handkerchief. I can’t talk any more.”
Rose had suddenly fallen from her prattle, soft and short-breathed.
“Then, dear,” she went on, “we shall have to fight the family. Aunt Shorne will be terrible. My poor uncles! I pity them. But they will come round. They always have thought what I did was right, and why should they change their minds now? I shall tell them that at their time of life a change of any kind is very unwise and bad for them. Then there is Grandmama Bonner. She can hurt us really, if she pleases. Oh, my dear Evan! if you had only been a curate! Why isn’t your name Parsley? Then my Grandmama the Countess of Elburne. Well, we have a Countess on our side, haven’t we? And that reminds me, Evan, if we’re to be happy and succeed, you must promise one thing: you will not tell the Countess, your sister. Don’t confide this to her. Will you promise?”
Evan assured her he was not in the habit of pouring secrets into any bosom, the Countess’s as little as another’s.
“Very well, then, Evan, it’s unpleasant while it lasts, but we shall gain the day. Uncle Melville will give you an appointment, and then?”
“Yes, Rose,” he said, “I will do this, though I don’t think you can know what I shall have to endure—not in confessing what I am, but in feeling that I have brought you to my level.”
“Does it not raise me?” she cried.
He shook his head.
“But in reality, Evan—apart from mere appearances—in reality it does! it does!”
“Men will not think so, Rose, nor can I. Oh, my Rose! how different you make me. Up to this hour I have been so weak! torn two ways! You give me double strength.”