“Offence!” he cried. “Yes, offence if you like the word—as it is offence when your friend puts a knife into you. The first thing you feel is surprise. Who could believe it? He! to stab you, when you were leaning upon him. It takes all a man’s credulity to believe that. But when it is done—” he added with one of the sudden smiles which used to illuminate his rugged countenance, but now lighted it up with a gleam of angry melancholy, just touched with humour, “you don’t take money from him, Paul.”
“Nor does he take it from you,” said Paul, quickly. “Spears, this is all folly. It is not a matter of passion, as you make it. Say I am as much in the wrong as you like. I did not know my own mind. I have had enough to go through in the last six weeks to teach me many things more important than my own mind. I can’t go with you; I have found out that—but what then? I don’t lose my interest in you; we don’t cease to be friends. As for stabbing you, putting a knife into you—that is ludicrous,” he cried, with an angry laugh. “It is like a couple of lovers in a French novel; not two Englishmen and friends.”
“I’ll tell you what, Paul,” said the other, taking no notice; “if all had been going well with you, why I could have put up with it. A place like this makes a man think. I’ve told you so before. It’s like being a prince on a small scale. Had I been born a prince I might have been a tyrant, but I shouldn’t have abandoned my throne; and no more would you, I always thought, if you once felt the charm of it. But when all that was over, Paul, when you had lost everything, come down from your high estate, and felt,” cried Spears, with an outburst of vehement feeling, “the burning and the bitterness of disappointment, that you should have abandoned us, and the cause, and me—your friend and father, then!”
He turned away, and walked from end to end of the long room. As for Paul, he did not say a word. What could he say? how could he explain that it was precisely then, when he had lost everything, that those strange companions had become most intolerable to him. They were bearable when his choice of them was a folly, and his own position utterly different from theirs; but as the distance lessened, the breach grew more apparent. This however he could not say. Nor had he a word to answer when Spears called himself his father. What did it mean? and where was Janet, whom he had seen entering the house, but who had disappeared? Paul’s thoughts veered away from the chief subject of the interview, while Spears, walking up and down the room, talked on. The money lay on the table, neither taking any further notice of it. It was found there by Gus when he came in an hour after, lying upon the table in the same spot. Gus thought it a temptation to the servants, and threw it into a drawer. He was not used to careless dealing with money, and he looked out very curiously at the strange man who was walking up and down the avenue with Paul, talking much and gesticulating largely. This was a kind of man altogether apart from all Sir Gus’s experiences, and his curiosity was much exercised. Was it perhaps an electioneering agent come here to talk of the representation of Farborough, and Sir William’s vacant seat? Gus stood at the window and watched, for he had a great deal of curiosity, with very keen eyes.
CHAPTER XI.
Alice and her mother kept apart for one night. They said good-night to each other hurriedly, the one too much wounded to ask, the other too proud to offer, her confidence. But when they had done this they had reached the length of their respective tethers. Next morning the girl stole into her mother’s room before any one was awake, and clinging about her, begged her pardon—for what she did not say. And Lady Markham kissed her and forgave her, though there was nothing to forgive. Words after all are the poorest exponents of meaning; they knew a great deal better what it was than if they had put it into words. And it was not till long after this reunion that Lady Markham said, quite accidentally, “Why did you not tell me Mr. Fairfax’s secret, Alice? He seems to be much in earnest about it, poor boy.”
Said Alice, very seriously, “How could I speak to you, mamma, about anything so—about anything that I was not obliged to speak of, at such a time?”
“Oh, my dear, that is true, that is most true. But it hurt me a little, for it made me feel as if—you were keeping something from me.”
“We all like Mr. Fairfax,” said Alice, courageously, “but it does not matter, does it, about his family? He was very good, very kind, at a time when we needed help; but to tell you about his want of a grandfather——”
Feeling safe in the smile which such a want would naturally call forth, Alice (rashly) ventured to meet her mother’s eyes. And then to her confusion, the former accident repeated itself, notwithstanding every precaution. It is very difficult indeed to take precautions against such accidents. Once more an exasperating, but unpreventable blush, of doubly died crimson, hot, sudden, scorching, flamed over Alice’s face.