There was a silence for a few minutes; then Ponty got up and strolled off into the garden; whither, in a few minutes more, Lucilla followed him.
“What's the matter, Harry?” she asked. “You seem a bit hipped.”
He gave her a rather forced smile. “I feel silly and grown old,” he said. “Suppose it's all a ghastly mistake?”
“A mistake——?” Lucilla faltered.
“Oh,” he broke out, with a kind of gloomy petulance, “it was all very well so long as it hung fire. One joked about it, chaffed her about it. Deep down in one's inside one didn't believe it would ever really come to anything. But now? Marriage, you see, when you examine the bare bones of it, is a damnably serious business. After all, it involves sanctities. Suppose she doesn't care for him?”
Lucilla looked bewildered. “Dear me,” she said. “The other day you assured me that she did.”
“Perhaps she does—but suppose she doesn't? I was talking in the air. Down deep one didn't believe. But this official visit from Mamma! We're suddenly at grip with an actuality. If she doesn't care for him—by Jove,” he nodded portentously, “you and I will have something to answer for. It's a threadbare observation, but all at once it glitters with pristine truth, that a woman who marries a man without loving him sells her soul to the devil.”
“If she doesn't love him, she won't accept him. Why should she?” said Lucilla.
“And the worst of selling your soul to the devil,” Pontycroft went morosely on, “is that the sly old beggar gives you nothing for it. Legends like Faust, where he gives beauty, youth, wealth, unlimited command of the pleasures of the world and the flesh, are based upon entire misinformation as to his real way of doing business. Look here; the devil has been acquiring souls continuously for the past five thousand years. Practice has made him a perfect dab at the process—and he was born a perfect Jew. You may be sure he doesn't go about paying the first price asked—not he. He bides his time. He waits till he catches you in a scrape, or desperately hard up, or drunk, or out of your proper cool wits with anger, pride, lust, whichever of the seven deadly impulses you will, and then he grinds you like a money-lender, or chouses you like a sharper at a fair. Silver or gold gives he none, at most a handful of gilded farthings. And I know one man to whom he gave—well, guess. Nothing better than a headache the next morning. Oh, trust the devil. He knows his trade.”
“Goodness gracious!” said Lucilla, and eyed her brother with perplexity. The wrinkles of his brow were black and deep. “You are in a state of mind. What has happened to you? Don't be a bird of evil omen. There's no question here of souls or devils—it's just a question of a very suitable match between young people who are fond of each other. Come! Don't be a croaker. I never knew you to croak like this before.”