"And in the meantime very likely you would rather not have it known."
"It has been most kind and generous of you and Mrs. Fanning not to speak of it," I answered.
"Just as you like about that; but I can see that, with the care of your mother and one thing or another you find me rather in the way, so I thought I would tell you that I am going off, I am going to Germany to begin with for a fortnight, and then I shall take lodgings in town. Oh, the house at Highgate won't hold me until it holds my little wife as well, but I won't live in this house to be a worry to you morning, noon, and night. And when I am not always there perhaps you'll think of me, and how faithful I am to you, and how truly, truly I love you; and you will think, too, of what you are to me, a poem, yes, that's the right word, a beautiful poem, something holy, something that makes a new man of me, the most lovely bit of a thing I ever saw. Sèvres china is nothing to you. I have seen dainty bits of art sold at Christy's before now, but there never was anything daintier than you before in the world, and I love you, there! I have said it. It means a good deal when a man gives all his love to a woman, and I give it all to you; and when everything is said and done, Westenra, bonny as you are, and lovely, and dainty as you are, you are only a woman and I am only a man."
"I think," I said suddenly, and I found the tears coming into my eyes and stealing down my cheeks, "that you are one of the best men I ever met. I did not think it. I will tell you frankly that I used to regard you as commonplace, and—as vulgar. I saw nothing but the commonplace and the vulgar in you, but now I do see something else, something which is high, and generous, and even beautiful. I know that you are a good man, a very good man. I don't love you yet, but I will try; I will try at least to like you, and on the first of June next year I will be your wife."
"Thank you, dear," he replied, "you could not have spoken clearer and plainer and more straight if you were to study the matter for ever and ever. Now I know where I am, and I am contented. With your sweet little self to take pattern by, I have not the slightest doubt that I'll win that golden heart of yours yet. I mean to have a right good try for it anyhow. The mater will be so pleased when I tell her how nicely you spoke to me to-night. I am off to Germany first thing in the morning; you won't see me for a fortnight, and I won't write to you, Westenra; you'd be worried by my letters, and I cannot express what I feel except when you are there. I won't even kiss you now, for I know you would rather not, but perhaps I may kiss your hand."
He raised my hand to his lips; I did not look at him, I slowly left the room. He was very good, and I was very fortunate. Oh yes, although my heart kept bleeding.
CHAPTER XXVI
HAND IN HAND
Mr. Fanning went away and Mrs. Fanning took care of me. She openly did this; she made a tremendous fuss about me, but she never by word or deed alluded to my engagement to her son Albert. She did not talk nearly so much as in former times of her son; perhaps he had told her that I was not to be worried, but she was very good and very nice, and I got sincerely attached to her: and I never saw the Duchess nor Lady Thesiger nor my old friends, although I heard that the Duchess was fairly well again, and was out and going into society; and every one now seemed certain that Jim Randolph had gone to the bottom in the Star of Hope, but by universal consent the boarders decided that the news should be kept from mother, and mother grew much better. The weather was so fine she was able to go out. We got a bath chair for her and took her out every day; and the boarding-house was thronged, absolutely thronged with guests; and by Mrs. Fanning's suggestion Miss Mullins put up the prices, and very considerably too, for the London season, but the boarders paid what they were asked willingly, for the house was so sweet and so bright and so comfortable; and Jane had her moment of triumph when she saw that No. 14 in the next street was beginning to imitate us, to put up sun blinds, and even to fix balconies on to the windows, and to have the same hours for meals; and the ladies who kept No. 14 called one day and asked to see Jane Mullins. Jane did give them a spice of her mind, and sent them away without any information whatever with regard to her plans.
"I could not tell them to their faces," said Jane to me that day, "that it wasn't I. I am just a homely body, and can only do the rough homely work; I didn't tell them that it was because I had a lady who had the face of an angel and the ways of a queen in the drawing-room, and a young lady, the princess, her daughter, that the boarding-house prospered. I never let out to them that because you two are real ladies, and know how to be courteous and sympathetic and sweet, and yet to uphold your own dignity through everything, that the place was always full. No, I never told them that. What cheek those Miss Simpsons had to try to pick my brains!"
Yes, undoubtedly, whether we were the cause or not, things seemed to be flourishing, and mother enjoyed her life; but one evening towards the end of June she began to talk of old times, of the Duchess, and the friends she knew in Mayfair, and then quite quietly her conversation turned to a subject ever I believe near her heart, James Randolph and his friendship for her.