She did not, however, say this aloud, and Mrs. de Burgh attributed her silence to yielding consent.
"Eugene wishes it very much I can assure you."
Mary looked up as if the tempter himself had murmured the insinuating observation in her ear, for there was something significant in the way Mrs. de Burgh had spoken, which she could not but understand, and still more in the words which followed.
"If you were only married to Eugene, Mary, you might rely on his giving up all objectionable and hurtful things."
"But as that cannot be," sighed Mary, despondingly.
"It could," hesitated Mrs. de Burgh; "it is only your friends' opposition which would stand in the way, until Eugene is able to settle something satisfactory as to his future prospects. Were I you, Mary, if it were only for Eugene's sake, I should not be so scrupulous about securing each other's happiness and his welfare, as he tells me you are."
But Mary turned away almost indignantly. If the proposal had even revolted her spirit when coming from Eugene's own lips, much more so, did it grate upon her feelings, when thus insinuated by those of another.
But whatever might here have ensued, was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. de Burgh. It seemed that he had only arrived in London that day, unexpectedly to Mrs. de Burgh, who otherwise would not have planned the meeting of Mary and Eugene.
He came evidently in one of his London humours, as his wife called it; and though he greeted Mary kindly, she fancied there was a certain alteration in his manner towards her, which she instinctively felt to originate in his disapprovement of the present circumstances of her engagement; she remembered that he never was friendly to the affair, though the direct subject was now avoided by each of the party.
He sat and made captious and cutting allusions to the races, and every one concerned therein, which, whether really intended at Eugene, Mary interpreted as such—and they touched the poor girl to the quick.