Janet smiled, and bowed her head graciously. She was in a state of great suppressed elation and excitement.
“I don’t need to ask,” she said, “my lady, if you followed my advice?”
“Your advice?”
“About Sir Paul; it answered very quick, didn’t it? I thought that would bring him to his senses. Father is as vexed! he thinks it is all my fault, but I never pretended different. A gentleman that has everything he can set his face to, and a title, and a beautiful property, why should he emigrate? But now there is something else that I’ve come to ask you about.”
“Do you mean that my son—has given up the idea?” Lady Markham could scarcely articulate the words.
“Oh, yes, bless you, as soon as ever you let him know that it would not make any difference. I knew very well that was what he meant all along. What should he go abroad for, a gentleman with his fortune? it was all nonsense. And Lady Markham,” said Janet, solemnly, “it would be mean to leave him in the lurch, I know, after all that; but still, I’ve got myself to look to. I don’t understand what all this story is about a new gentleman, and him, after all, not having anything. I can’t feel easy in my mind about it. I like Sir Paul the best, and always will; but I’ve had another very good offer. It’s too serious to play fast and loose with,” said Janet, gravely, “it’s something as I must take or leave. Now there is nobody but you, my lady, that will tell me the truth. He is Sir Paul, ain’t he? he has got the property? I wouldn’t take it upon me to ask such questions if it wasn’t that I am, so to speak, one of the family. And as for father—I can’t put no confidence in what father says.”
Alice got up hurriedly from her chair and threw down her work; it was a mere movement of impatience, but to Janet every movement meant something. She kept her eyes upon the young lady who might, for anything she could tell, be in a conspiracy to keep the truth from her.
“Father thinks of nothing but love,” she said, following Alice with her eyes, “but there’s more in marriage than that. I can’t trust in father to tell me true.”
“What is it you want me to tell you?” said Lady Markham, trembling with eagerness.
She would have told her—almost anything that was not directly false. She began to frame in her mind a description of Paul’s disinheritance, but she feared to spoil her case by too great anxiety. As for Alice, she stood by the window pale, speechless, indignant—too wildly angry on Paul’s account to perceive what her mother saw so plainly, that here was a chance of escape for Paul.