“I don’t doubt your promise,” she said with a charming shyness; “but it is a great matter, you give me no guaranties, you may fail, and then all will have been in vain.”
“I won’t fail. I shall so manage that there will be no chance of failure. And to prove my faith, if you say ‘Yes,’ I think I can undertake that within only two months after the marriage the child shall be unearthed, and within six the proofs of his legitimacy shall be handed you. That’s fair—that seems fairer—come, now. Only the marriage must be prompt in that case, without a fortnight’s delay. I can’t offer better terms. What do you say to it?”
Violet, without answering, suddenly cast herself upon the sofa-head, burying her face in it. A bitter lamentation came from her, so thin and low that Van Hupfeldt could scarce hear it. He stood over her, looking at her, his heart in his mouth; and presently, bending to her, he whispered: “Tell me!”
“God knows!” came from her brokenly.
He put his lips on her hair, and she shivered. “It is ‘Yes,’ then,” said he; “but pity me still more, and say that it shall be at once.”
“No,” she sobbed, “I must have time to think. It is too much, after all—”
At that moment Mrs. Mordaunt entered. Violet, aroused by the opening door, stood up with a bent head, an averted face, and Van Hupfeldt said, with a sort of frenzied laugh, to Mrs. Mordaunt: “See how the days are lengthening out already.”
Mrs. Mordaunt looked at Violet with a query in her glance; and Violet’s great eyes dwelt on her mother without answering by any sign that question of lifted eyebrows. The girl was puzzled and overwrought. Was it so that men won women, that some man had won her sister? Surely this was a strange wooing!