“No; she loves him.”
Again Gerald stopped, as after making a communication of great gravity. Mrs. Hawthorne, listening with breathless interest, made no sound that urged him to go on. The fact he had announced seemed solemn to both alike, with the vision floating between them of Brenda’s white-rose face and deer’s eyes, the feeling they had in common that Brenda, for indefinable reasons, was not like ordinary mortals, and that what she felt was more significant, more important.
“But he has nothing beside his officer’s pay,” Gerald went on when the surprise of his revelation had been allowed time to pass, “and she on her side has nothing but what her parents might give her, who, you probably know, have no great abundance. His proposals were made to them, as is the custom in this country, and have been formally declined.”
He left it to her to appreciate the situation created by this, and, while thinking on his side, ran the point of the slender cane which he had not abandoned round and round the same figure of the rug-pattern at their feet.
“They are both too poor. I see,” said Mrs. Hawthorne; but added quickly, as if she had not really seen: “It seems sort of funny, though, doesn’t it, to let that keep them, if they’re fond of each other?”
“Oh, it’s not that. However fond, they couldn’t marry without her bringing her husband a fixed portion. It is the law in this country, in the case of officers of the army,–to keep up the dignity of that impressive body, you understand. In the case of a lieutenant the dote, or dowry, 112must be forty thousand francs. I learned the exact sum for the first time last night.”
“How much is that? Let me see,”–Mrs. Hawthorne did mental arithmetic, rather quickly for a woman,–“eight thousand dollars. And the Fosses can’t give it.”
“Of their ability to give it if they wished to I am no judge. I dare say they could, though with their son John going before long to hang out his shingle, as they call it, I doubt if it could be without bleeding themselves. But they are not convinced that the sacrifice ought to be made.” He frowned at the pattern on the rug, and suddenly cut at it impatiently with his stick. “It is a singular story, in which everybody is right and the result wrong, horribly wrong!”
“Oh, dear me!” sighed Mrs. Hawthorne, feeling with him even before understanding.