"I implored her to believe that she was no burden to Martha or to me. If she could be content to live that dull and joyless life, she was at least secure of a safe and respectable home; and if she cared to carry on her education, something might be done in the way of masters; or she might attend some classes in Harley Street, or elsewhere.
"She turned red and then pale, and I saw tears trembling on her long auburn lashes.
"'I am afraid I am unteachable,' she faltered, with downcast eyes. 'Kind ladies at Besbery tried to teach me; but it was no use. My mind always wandered. I could not keep my thoughts upon the book I was reading, or on what they told me. Miss Grimshawe, who wanted to help me, said I was incorrigibly idle and atrociously obstinate. But, indeed, it was not idleness or obstinacy that kept me from learning. I could not force myself to think or to remember. My thoughts would only go their own way; and I cared for nothing but music, or for the poetry my father used to read to me sometimes of an evening. I am afraid Miss Grimshawe was right, and that I ought to be a dressmaker.'
"I glanced at the hands which lay loosely clasped upon the arm of the chair in which she was sitting. Such delicately tapering fingers were never meant for the dressmaker's workroom. The problem of Esperanza's life was not to be solved that way.
"I did not remain long on this first morning; but I went again two days afterwards, and again, until it came to be every day. Martha grumbled and warned me of my danger, and of the wrong done to Esperanza, if I were to make her care for me.
"'I don't think there's much fear of that,' added Martha. 'She's too much in the clouds. It's you I'm afraid of. You and me knows who mamma wants you to marry, don't us, Mr. George?'
"I could not gainsay Martha upon this point. Lady Emily and I had ridden the same rocking-horse; she riding pillion with her arms clasped round my waist, while I urged the beast to his wildest pace. We had taken tea out of the same toy tea-things—her tea-things—and before I was fifteen years of age my mother told me that she was pleased to see I was so fond of Emily, and hoped that she and I would be husband and wife some day, in the serious future, just as we were little lovers now in the childish present.
"I remember laughing at my mother's speech, and thinking within myself that Emily and I hardly realized my juvenile idea of lovers. The romantic element was entirely wanting in our association. When I talked of Lady Emily, later, to Gerald Standish, I remember I described her as 'a good sort,' and discussed her excellent qualities of mind and temper with an unembarrassed freedom which testified to a heart that was at peace.
"I felt more mortified than I would have cared to confess at Martha's blunt assurance that Esperanza was too much in the clouds to care about me; and it may be that this remark of my old nurse's gave just the touch of pique that acted as a spur to passion. I know that after two or three afternoons in Great Ormond Street, I felt that I loved this girl as I could never love again, and that henceforward it would be impossible for me to contemplate the idea of life without her. The more fondly I loved her, the less demonstrative I became, and my growing reserve threw dust in the elderly eyes that watched us. Martha believed that her warning had taken effect, and she so far confided in my discretion as to allow me to take Esperanza for lamp-lit walks in the Bloomsbury squares, after our cosy tea-drinking in the little back parlour. The tea-drinking and the walk became an institution. Martha's rheumatics had made walking exercise impossible for her during the last month. Benjamin was fat and lazy.
"'If I didn't let the poor child go out with you, she'd hardly get a breath of fresh air all the winter. And I know that I can trust you, Mr. George,' said Martha.