Enid Glenwilliam sprang up, entered the summer-house, and stood over her visitor, lightly leaning forward, her hands supporting her on a rustic table that stood between them, her breath fluttering.
"Yes—perhaps now I could marry him—perhaps now I could!" she repeated. "So long as I wasn't your dependent—so long as we had a free life of our own—and knew exactly where we stood, with nothing to fear or to hope—the situation might be faced. We might hope, too—father and I—to bring our ideas and our principles to bear upon Arthur. I believe he would adopt them. He has never had any ideas of his own. You have made him take yours! But of course it seems inconceivable to you that we should set any store by our principles. You think all I want is money. Well, I am like anybody else. I know the value of money. I like money and luxury, and pretty things. I have been sorely tempted to let Arthur marry me as he has once or twice proposed, at the nearest registry office, and present you next day with the fait accompli—to take or leave. I believe you would have surrendered to the fait accompli—yes, I believe you would! Arthur was convinced that, after sulking a little, you would forgive him. Well, but then—I looked forward—to the months—or years—in which I should be courting—flattering—propitiating you—giving up my own ideas, perhaps, to take yours—turning my back on my father—on my old friends—on my party—for money! Oh yes, I should be quite capable of it. At least, I dare say I should. And I just funked it! I had the grace—the conscience—to funk it. I apologize for the slang—I can't express it any other way. And now you come and say: 'Engage yourself to him—and I'll disinherit him at once. That makes the thing look clean and square!—that tempts the devil in one, or the angel—I don't know which. I like Arthur. I should get a great many social advantages by marrying him, whatever you may do or say; and a thousand a year to me looks a great deal more than it does to you. But then, you see, my father began life as a pit-boy—Yes, I think it might be done!"
The speaker raised herself to her full height, and stood with her hands behind her, gazing at Lady Coryston.
In the eyes of that poor lady the Chancellor's daughter had suddenly assumed the aspect of some glittering, avenging fate. At last Lady Coryston understood something of the power, the spell, there was in this girl for whom her son had deserted her; at last she perceived, despairingly perceived, her strange beauty. The long thin mouth, now breathing scorn, the short chin, and prominent cheekbones denied Enid Glenwilliam any conventional right indeed to that great word. But the loveliness of the eyes and hair, of the dark brows, sustaining the broad and delicate forehead, the pale rose and white of the skin, the setting of the head, her wonderful tallness and slenderness, these, instinct as the whole woman was, at the moment, with a passion of defiance, made of her a dazzling and formidable creature. Lady Coryston beheld her father in her; she seemed to feel the touch, the terror of Glenwilliam.
Bewilderment and unaccustomed weakness overtook Lady Coryston. It was some moments before, under the girl's threatening eyes, she could speak at all. Then she said, with difficulty:
"You may marry my son, Miss Glenwilliam—but you do not love him! That is perfectly plain. You are prepared none the less, apparently, to wreck his happiness and mine, in order—"
"I don't love him? Ah! that's another story altogether! Do I love him? I don't know. Honestly, I don't know. I don't believe I am as capable of falling in love as other girls are—or say they are. I like him, and get on with him—and I might marry him; I might—have—married him," she repeated, slowly, "partly to have the sweetness, Lady Coryston, of punishing you for the slight you offered my father!—and partly for other things. But you see—now I come to think of it—there is some one else to be considered—"
The girl dropped into a chair, and looked across the table at her visitor, with a sudden change of mood and voice.
"You say you won't have it, Lady Coryston. Well, that doesn't decide it for me—and it wouldn't decide it for Arthur. But there's some one else won't have it."
A pause. Miss Glenwilliam took up the fan again and played with it—considering.