“Friendship! Oh, yes! Mr. Beauclerc,” said Helen, in a hurried voice, eagerly seizing on and repeating the word friendship; “yes, I have always considered you as a friend. I am sure I shall always find you a sincere, good friend.”
“Friend!” he repeated in a disappointed tone—all his hopes sunk. She took his arm again, and he was displeased even with that. She was not the being of real sensibility he had fancied—she was not capable of real love. So vacillated his heart and his imagination, and so quarrelled he alternately every instant with her and with himself. He could not understand her, or decide what he should next do or say himself; and there was the boat nearing the land, and they were going on, on, towards it in silence. He sighed.
It was a sigh that could not but be heard and noticed; it was not meant to be noticed, and yet it was. What could she think of it? She could not believe that Beauclerc meant to act treacherously. This time she was determined not to take anything for granted, not to be so foolish as she had been with Mr. Churchill.
“Is not that your boat that I see, rowing close?”
“Yes, I believe—certainly. Yes,” said he.
But now the vacillation of Beauclerc’s mind suddenly ceased. Desperate, he stopped her, as she would have turned down that path to the landing-place where the boat was mooring. He stood full across the path. “Miss Stanley, one word—by one word, one look decide. You must decide for me whether I stay—or go—for ever!”
“I!—Mr. Beauclerc!—”
The look of astonishment—more than astonishment, almost of indignation—silenced him completely, and he stood dismayed. She pressed onwards, and he no longer stopped her path. For an instant he submitted in despair. “Then I must not think of it. I must go—must I, Miss Stanley? Will not you listen to me, Helen? Advise me; let me open my heart to you as a friend.”
She stopped under the shady tree beneath which they were passing, and, leaning against it, she repeated, “As a friend—but, no, no, Mr. Beauclerc—no; I am not the friend you should consult—consult the general, your guardian.”
“I have consulted him, and he approves.”