“A trust!”
“Yes. You promised that you would look after my foolish young ward, and take care that she did not fall in love with Mr. Darrell.”
Mr. Monckton watched the girl’s face very closely while he pronounced Launcelot Darrell’s name, but there was no revelation in that pale and wearied countenance. The grey eyes returned his gaze frankly and unhesitatingly. Their brightness was faded, but their innocent candour remained, in all its virginal beauty.
“I tried to do what you wished,” Miss Vane answered. “I am afraid that Laura does admire Mr. Darrell. But I can’t quite understand whether she is serious or not, and in any case nothing I could say would influence her much, though I know she loves me.”
“No, I suppose not,” said Mr. Monckton, rather bitterly; “women are not easily to be influenced in these matters. A woman’s love is the sublimation of selfishness, Miss Vincent. It is delightful to a woman to throw herself away; and she is perfectly indifferent as to how many unoffending victims she drags to destruction in her downfall. An Indian woman sacrifices herself out of respect to her dead husband. An English woman offers up her husband and children on the altar of a living lover. Pardon me if I speak too plainly. We lawyers become acquainted with strange stories. I should not at all wonder if my ward were to insist upon making herself miserable for life because Launcelot Darrell has a Grecian nose.”
Mr. Monckton seated himself, uninvited, by the table on which the unwashed tea-things bore testimonies to Eleanor’s neglect. He looked round the room, but not rudely; for in one brief observant glance he was able to see everything, and to understand everything.
“Have you ever lived here, Miss Vincent?” he asked.
“Yes; I lived here a year and a half before I went to Hazlewood. I was very happy,” Eleanor added, hastily, as if in deprecation of the lawyer’s look, which betrayed a half-compassionate interest. “My friends are very good to me, and I never wish for a better home.”
“But you have been accustomed to a better home, in your childhood?”
“No, not very much better. I always lived in lodgings, with my poor father.”