CHAPTER XXVI.
A PROPOSAL.
Innocent walked in unsuspectingly through the great open window in the drawing-room, which looked dusky and dim after the sunshine. The flowers peeped through the glass doors of the conservatory, and her own image in the great glass over the mantelpiece seemed to confront her as she came in. Mrs. Eastwood rose from the sofa, close to the window, where she had been sitting beside Sir Alexis. She took Innocent’s hand. The other hand still embraced the history book, which she was holding close to her breast. Mrs. Eastwood looked into the girl’s face tenderly, with an anxious gaze, to which Innocent gave no response. “I wonder if she will understand?” she said, turning to Longueville, who had risen from the sofa. “I think I can make her understand,” he said. And then Mrs. Eastwood put her arm round the girl and kissed her. Innocent had ceased to be surprised and impatient of the kindness by which she was surrounded. Though she still took little part in the life of the family, it began to seem natural to her that people should feel, and that they should talk, and laugh, and cry, and conduct themselves as it once seemed so strange for them to do. She was not surprised now at any “fuss” that was made. She accepted it quietly, taking little part in it. But for the moment this scene did indeed appear like a dream; the unexpected kiss, the words to which she attached no definite meaning, the something evidently connected with herself, which they settled before her eyes; even the air of the room seemed full of a certain whispering curiosity, interest, and suspense. Innocent felt that something was about to happen, without knowing how. Was she to be sent away? Had something occurred that involved her fate? She looked, no longer quite passive, with a little tremulous wonder and doubt from one to the other. Then Mrs. Eastwood, who had been holding her hand, kissed her again, and there were tears in her eyes.
“Sir Alexis has something to say to you, Innocent. Give him your attention,” said Mrs. Eastwood, “and when you want me, you will find me in the dining-room. My poor dear child—God bless you!” cried the kind woman, and hurried away as if afraid to commit herself. Then it was the turn of Sir Alexis to advance, which he did, looking, as Innocent thought, strangely at her, as if he had something terrible to communicate. He, too, took her hand, and led her to the sofa, to the place from which Mrs. Eastwood had risen. “Innocent,” he said softly.
She looked at him with scared and anxious eyes. She was not as she had been. Had she been asked whether she loved her relations, she would probably have stared at the questioner, and made no reply; but the thought of leaving them—of going out into the strange world—struck her with a sharp pang. “Am I to be sent away?” she cried; “is that what you have to tell me?” and a dull dread, which she could not struggle against, took possession of Innocent’s soul.
“To be sent away! No, that is the last thing I could have to tell you,” he said, looking at her with something in his eyes which surprised her, which confused her; which, in her simplicity, she could not understand, yet felt moved by strangely. Her foolish terror died away. The faint vague smile, with which she had looked round at the falling leaves, came upon her face again. This smile was quite peculiar to Innocent. It moved some people almost to tears; and it frightened others. It was like the look of some one smiling in a dream. The smile altogether overpowered the old veteran and man of the world beside her. There was something in it half-imbecile, half-divine; and, indeed, Innocent stood at the very climax of these two extremes—almost a fool, almost the purest visionary development of womankind. In her present stage of being it seemed impossible to predict on which side the balance would drop.
“Innocent,” he said very softly, and then made a pause; “I am as old as your father,” he added after a moment, in which he seemed to take breath.
“Yes.”
“As old as your father; and you are but a child—not a grown woman. Young in years, younger in mind——”
“You say that because I am not clever,” said Innocent, with a look of pain.
“No, indeed. I do not want you to be clever—not anything but what you are——”