A Cul-de-Sac.
”... It became a proverb, when what ought to be your election was forced upon you, to say, ‘Hobson’s choice.’”
Spectator, Number 509.
There was silence in the Romary carriage too as it made its way home, with considerably more speed than the Withenden fly, after the ball. It had been arranged that Mr Cheviott and his sister were not to return to Cleavelands that evening, but to drive straight back to Romary, and it had been arranged, too, that Captain Beverley should accompany them. Arthur would not, on the whole, have been sorry to upset this plan, but there was no help for it. As to how much, or how little of his conduct in the ball-room, had been observed by his cousins, he was in ignorance, and he fancied that he did not care. He told himself that he had acted with deliberate intention, that it was best to bring matters to a crisis, and have done at all costs with the restraint which of late he had found so unendurable; but in so speaking to himself he was not stating the real facts of the case. From first to last his behaviour to Lilias Western had been the result of no reflection or consideration; he had never fairly looked his position in the face, and made up his mind as to what he was justified in doing, or how far he had a right to go; he had simply yielded to the charm of her society, and thrown care to the winds, trusting, like a child, that somehow or other things would come right—something would “turn up.”
And it was the secret consciousness of the defencelessness of such conduct that made him uneasy in Mr Cheviott’s presence, and made him dread the explanation which he now fully realised must shortly take place between them.
Alys’s mood, as respects the Western sisters, was, as has been seen, verging on the defiant. Yet a quick sensitiveness to the unexpressed state of feelings of her two companions warned her that, at present, any allusion to the subject was best avoided.
“I will stand by Arthur if he is in earnest,” she said to herself, resolutely, “and were Laurence twenty times over my elder brother I would not support him in any narrow-minded piece of class prejudice, or interference with Arthur’s right to please himself. But if I am to do any good I must first be sure that Arthur is in earnest, and, till then, I had better take care how I irritate Laurence by meddling.”
So Alys cogitated, lying back in her corner of the carriage, and saying nothing.
Suddenly Mr Cheviott’s voice roused her; to her surprise he spoke very cheerfully.
“Well, Alys, are you very tired? I think it was a mistake of the Cleaves to have that carpet dance last night. It prevented our feeling as fresh as might have been the case to-night.”
“Yes,” said Alys, “I think it was. But I did not feel tired, except just at first, and then I was all right again.”