“Not immediately, of course; but if I wait, I think so.” That, I remember, was his answer.
“If you wait till you get rid of that poor girl, of course.”
“She knows nothing about that,—it’s none of her business.”
“Do you mean to say she does n’t know you are engaged?”
“How should she know it, how should she believe it, when she sees how I love her?” the young man exclaimed; but he admitted afterwards that he had not deceived her, and that she rendered full justice to the motives that had determined him. He thought he could answer for it that she would marry him some day or other.
“Then she is a very cruel woman,” I said, “and I should like, if you please, to hear no more about her.” He protested against this, and, a month later, brought her up again, for a purpose. The purpose, you will see, was a very strange one indeed. I had then come back to town; it was the early part of December. I supposed he was hunting, with his own hounds; but he appeared one afternoon in my drawing-room and told me I should do him a great favor if I would go and see Lady Vandeleur.
“Go and see her? Where do you mean, in Norfolk?”
“She has come up to London—did n’t you know it? She has a lot of business. She will be kept here till Christmas; I wish you would go.”
“Why should I go?” I asked. “Won’t you be kept here till Christmas too, and is n’t that company enough for her?”
“Upon my word, you are cruel,” he said, “and it’s a great shame of you, when a man is trying to do his duty and is behaving like a saint.”