Walter gave up with a sigh his hope of receiving support and consolation; but even now he was not able to follow her lead. “I suppose,” he said, very uncheerfully, “I shall have to go to Oxford. That’s the only thing I shall be allowed to do.”
“Oh, to Oxford!” she cried, with disdain.
“I don’t know that I wish it, only it’s the right thing to do, I suppose,” said Walter, with another sigh. “Don’t you think so?”
“I think so? No, indeed! If I were you—oh, if I were you! That’s what I should like to be, a young gentleman with plenty of money and able to do whatever I pleased.”
“Oh,” he said, with a shudder, “don’t say so; you who are so much finer a thing—so much—don’t you know—it is a sort of sacrilege to talk so.”
At this she laughed with frank contempt. “That’s nonsense,” she said; “but I should not go to Oxford. I’d go into the Guards. It is they that have the best of it: almost always in London, and going everywhere. I should not marry, not for years and years!”
“Marry!” cried Walter, and blushed, which it did not occur to his companion to do.
“No, I should not marry,” said the girl; “I should have my fun, that is, if I were a gentleman. I should make the money go; I should go in for horses and all sorts of things. I should just go to the other extremity and do everything the reverse of what I have to do now. That’s because I can do so little now. Come, tell me, Mr. Penton, what should you do?”
Walter was much discomposed by this inquiry. He was disturbed altogether by the turn the conversation had taken. It was not at all what he had intended. He felt baffled and put aside out of the way; but yet there was an attraction in it, and in the arch look which was in her eyes. He felt the challenge and it moved him, notwithstanding that in his heart he was deeply disappointed that she had thrown back his confidences and not allowed herself to be drawn into his thoughts. He half understood, too, whither she wanted to lead him—into those encounters of wit in which she had so easily the mastery, in which he was so serious, pleading for her grace, and she so capricious, so full of mystery, holding him at bay. But he could not all at once, after all the experiences of the morning, begin to laugh again.
“I am stupid to-day,” he said. “I can’t think of fortune or anything else. I dare say I should do just the reverse of what you say.”