This was what the French would call a brutal speech—for, in the first place, it was true; and then Mr. Bonamy was at an age which seemed old to Harry, but rather young than otherwise to himself, and he was not at all pleased to have it taken for granted that he must shortly be going to die. Yes, of course Rita would outlive him, would live long, he hoped, after him; but still the idea that there was any need to marry her off in haste, lest he might die and leave her before she was—settled, was most repugnant to him; it went to his heart, wounding him with a possibility which he had no desire to think of; and it made him hot and angry, as if it had been a personal insult. No one likes to be told that he has come to a period of life at which it is more likely than otherwise that he will shortly die, and that it is very necessary to take precautions against that event. It was all he could do to keep from bursting out upon Harry, crushing him with a bitter rejoinder. He to address his benefactor thus! He to speak in this tone to the man who had received him when nobody else would, who had lifted him out of all the difficulties of a stranger, and opened not only his office, which gave him bread, but his house, which gave him friends, and position, and everything a young man could wish for! These words were rushing to Mr. Bonamy’s lips, when fortunately a sense of his personal dignity, and of the impropriety of any such demonstration, came in and stopped him. Harry’s speech, after all, was good common sense, just the sort of thing that everybody says; the world was on that side of the question. Perhaps prudence and the foresight which love itself ought to possess was on that side too. So he was silent, repressing the first instinct of reply. When he was able to do it, he answered with as much self-possession as he could muster.
“I admire your prudence, Mr. Oliver. I hope you will always see your own duties with the same clearness which you display about those of others; and I have no doubt you are quite right; but it is a question which I don’t care to discuss. Let me say, before we finish this talk, that I think you have behaved very honourably, and as a gentleman should; and I quite accept your reason for coming to my house much less frequently. I will make your excuses to my daughter; and nothing that has passed need make any difference in our official relations,” he added, looking up with a smile that was sharp and cold, not like his usual sunshine, “in that respect there is no possible reason why everything should not go on as before.”
“Very well, Sir,” said Harry, getting up with some confusion. The conversation had been going on so long, and so much less indignation than he expected had been in the Vice-Consul’s air at the beginning, that this sudden sentence confounded him. He was quite ready, when he began, to be taken at his word; but somehow he was not now so ready; the bitterness had seemed to be past, and he had hoped that the indulgent and fatherly friend before him would have found some way by which he should still be permitted to come and go. But now all at once Harry found himself, in his own words, “shut up,” and had nothing to do but to stumble to his feet as quickly as he could, and take himself off, much subdued and astonished, to his desk in the outer office—where he gave his mind to his business, not too clearly, but with as much devotion as was practicable, for the rest of the day.
CHAPTER XII.
RITA’S OPINION.
THESE two men, however, though they were disposed to think themselves the chief, or, indeed, only persons concerned, were by no means the masters of the situation, as they supposed. Rita took Harry’s absence from her drawing-room quite lightly at first, so lightly that her father’s mind was entirely relieved. He had been afraid that her astonishment, if nothing else, would have been great, and that she would have asked him a hundred questions—questions which it might have given him some trouble to answer. But she took it quite quietly, and said nothing about it for a week or two, till the Vice-Consul was of opinion that all danger was passed. About this time, however, Rita, by one of those accidents which occur perversely to heighten the embarrassment of every domestic crisis, met Harry suddenly on one of her walks, coming upon him round a corner without any warning to either party. Her usual attendant, Benedetta, was with the young lady, who looked up brightly with surprise and pleasure, and held out her hand.
“What has become of you all this time?” she said, in her kind, soft voice.
On Harry, for his part, the effect of so suddenly coming in sight of her, and of her frank accost, was too remarkable to escape Rita’s quick eye. He fell backward a step, swerved from his course, gave a glance round him, as if in search of some way of escape, then, seeing none, took her offered hand gingerly, just touched and dropped it, his face flushing crimson, his voice faltering.
“Oh, I am very well, thank you,” was the answer he made; and then stood and stared at her for a moment, and, without replying to any of her questions, went on again confusedly, leaving her standing still gazing after him in a state of mingled dismay and consternation.
“What can have happened to him?” Rita said to herself, unconsciously aloud: and “I think the gentleman must be mad,” said tranquilly the good Benedetta, who thought the English were all a little insane, and that it was nothing much out of the way. But that evening when dinner was over it was the Vice-Consul’s turn to be undeceived.
“Papa,” said Rita, suddenly (she had let him have his dinner first, which showed consideration), “what is the matter with Mr. Oliver?”