“You can’t be more frightened than I was,” said Harry, ingenuously. “It was by that I found out. Of course I knew I admired—her more than anybody I had ever seen; but I had no more notion how far it had gone—— and then like a fool I began to speak of going home to England, and how I was sure I could take her all safe if she would go with me. That was all: I assure you that was all,” cried Harry, discomposed by Mr. Bonamy’s look and manner. He was alarmed by this look: the Vice-Consul had risen up, trembling with wrath.
“I would like to know,” he cried, “what more you could have said!—what more could you wish to say? And this is what you call love! To betray my child; to propose death to her—death! Oh, boy, boy, do you know what you are doing in your folly and simplicity; beguiling her to her death, and me to—— Good God! why should I always be such a fool? Why did I have this fellow here?”
“You are judging me too harshly, Sir,” cried Harry; “you think it was a great deal worse than really happened. She never took any notice of it; it hadn’t the least meaning to her. She asked me did I know something—some physic I suppose,” Harry said, in a kind of parenthesis, with disdain—“that would make it safe. That was all she thought of it; but as for me, as soon as I had said it I came to myself. I’ve had a dreadful time of it since,” he added once more, with that air of downright sincerity and solemnity which made the Vice-Consul wish to smile. “I’ve turned over every kind of plan in my mind. Sometimes I’ve thought of going right away; but that seemed hard, too, when I had just got settled here. And at the last the right thing seemed just to come and tell you. Of course I put myself in your hands. I’ll do whatever you think it proper I should do: give up the office; go away from the town; anything you please. I don’t want to leave you—or her,” cried Harry. “God knows! you have been so kind to me!”
And then the Vice-Consul, hearing the young fellow’s voice falter, and seeing that he kept his eyes down to conceal the water that had got into them, felt a little knot in his throat too, and was melted in spite of himself.
“Oliver,” he said, “I don’t want to be hard upon you. You said she took no notice—that is just like her; she is no coquette, my girl; she is very innocent. I daresay it never occurred to her that you meant anything.”
“I don’t think it did, Sir,” Harry said eagerly. Of course he had no clue to Rita’s retirement to her own room, or the amused consideration she gave to the subject there.
“I don’t want to be hard upon you,” Mr. Bonamy repeated, “if that is the case. Answer me one more thing, Oliver, and answer it on your honour. Have you any reason to think (that I should have to put such a question?) that if you had spoken out more plainly, she—— Heavens! I can’t put it into words.”
“How could I,” cried Harry, almost provoked, “have reason to think anything about it, when I never even suspected myself? It was that word that opened my eyes.”
And then there was another pause. Harry stood turning over and over that bundle of papers. He looked at them as if he thought they contained some secret of state. He took them in his hand as if anxious to know how many ounces they weighed. His face wore a look of the gravest stolid seriousness. He had now withdrawn from the consideration of his duty, or what he ought to do, and put it into another person’s hands. He was freed of the responsibility, and he had only to wait now to see what he should be told to do.
Then once more a sense of the humour of the situation intruded upon its seriousness in the Vice-Consul’s eyes. His anger and alarm were quenched in a sense of the absolute simplicity and honesty of the culprit, and a hope that no harm had been done. Mr. Bonamy began to breathe freely again, even to smile.