“Mr. Fairfax, what does this mean?” said Lady Markham, almost haughtily.
Was it not enough to make the politest of women forget her manners? Fairfax did not know, any more than she did, what it meant. He hoped that it meant a great deal more than he had ever hoped, and his heart was dancing with sudden pride and happiness.
“It means,” he said, “dear Lady Markham, what you see: that I have forgotten myself, and that being nobody, I have ventured to lift my eyes—oh, don’t imagine I don’t know it!—to one who is immeasurably above me—to one who—I won’t trust myself to say anything about her—you know,” said the young man. “How could I help it? I saw her—though it was but for a little while—every day.”
“When her father was dying!” cried Lady Markham, with a sob. This was what went to her heart. Her Alice, her spotless child—to let this stranger woo her in the very shadow of her father’s death-bed. She covered her face with her hands. Paul had not wrung her heart enough; there was one more drop of pain to be crushed out.
“I did not think of that. I did not think of anything, except that I was there—in a paradise I had no right to be in—by her side: heaven knows how. I had so little right to it that it looked like heaven’s own doing, Lady Markham. I did not know there was any such garden of Eden in the world,” he said. “I never knew there was such a woman as you; and then she—that was the crown of all. Do you think I intended it? I was surprised out of my senses altogether. I should have liked to stretch myself out like a bit of carpet for you to walk on: and she——”
“Mr. Fairfax, this is nonsense,” said Lady Markham, but in a softened tone. “My daughter is just like other girls; but when I was compelled to leave her, when my other duties called me, could I have supposed that a gentleman would have taken advantage——”
“Ah!” he said, with a tone of profound discouragement, “perhaps that is what it is—perhaps it may be because I am not what people call a gentleman.”
“Mr. Fairfax!” cried Lady Markham, with horror in her voice.
“Yes,” he said, with a sigh, “it is out now; that is what I wanted to ask if Miss Markham had told you. I am nobody, Lady Markham. I don’t belong to the Wiltshire Fairfaxes, or to the Fairfaxes of the north, or to any Fairfaxes that ever were heard of: I told her so. I did not want to come into your house under false pretences; and it was that that I meant to ask Miss Markham when—I betrayed myself.”
“You betrayed yourself?” Lady Markham was entirely bewildered; for to her it appeared that it was Alice who had betrayed herself. But this new statement calmed and restrained her. If he had not remarked, perhaps, the agitation of Alice, it was not for her mother to point it out. “Am I to understand, Mr. Fairfax, that you said anything to Alice, when you were here in the midst of our trouble——?”