“You seem to put me out of the question altogether,” said Frederick, “though it seems to me I have a right to be considered——”
“You!—oh, Frederick!—when you know how impossible, how out of all question that would be—— But Innocent has put it out of my hands, she has chosen Sir Alexis herself,—and when I think how much more he can give her than I ever could,—what advantages—what means of developing——”
“The fact is, women are all mercenary,” said Frederick, “they cannot help it. Money carries the day with them, whatever may be the drawbacks. I have long known it. Innocent is simple enough in other things, but in this she is like all the rest.”
And thus the family conclave broke up, even Jenny, who was his mother’s champion, being unable to see his way to her defence in this particular. Dick gave up the question with more light-heartedness, being unaffected by theories, but Jenny went back to Oxford somewhat melancholy, wondering if indeed “all women” were to be condemned wholesale, or whether there would be any other meaning in the allusion to the circumstances which could be trusted to Sir Alexis. What these circumstances were, and the special mystery which enveloped poor Innocent, neither of the boys knew.
The effect, however, upon the world at large was very different. In the opinion of the Molyneuxes, for instance, Mrs. Eastwood rose to a far higher degree of estimation than they had ever bestowed upon her before. They even thought it might be as well that Ernest should be “settled,” now that things had taken this turn. Nelly was not a bad match, all things considered, and to be married would probably settle Ernest, and the connexion was good. Besides, when the mother had done so well for her niece, a poor girl whom she had “shamefully neglected,” what might she not aspire to for her daughter? I do not know that Ernest was stimulated in distinct words by these sentiments—but such feelings convey themselves otherwise than by words—and the conviction came to his mind also that now was the moment to conclude his long probation, as he now chose to call it. “Don’t you think I have been kept hanging on and waiting long enough?” he said to Nelly, whom he found immersed in Innocent’s business, one morning, when, contrary to his habit, and very unexpectedly to them all, he sauntered into the drawing-room at The Elms.
“Kept hanging on?” said Nelly, with a surprise she did not attempt to conceal.
“Of course, you don’t suppose it is of my own will that I have waited for you like this,—almost as long as Jacob, eh, Nelly?—longer, I should say, considering how much faster things go now-a-days——”
“I did not know that you had ever tried to shorten it,” said Nelly slowly, growing very red.
“I don’t pretend to be able to subdue circumstances,” said Molyneux; “we are all the victims of them, and I as much as other men. But it seems to me, Nelly, that now’s our chance; now that Frederick has been providentially released from his encumbrance, and that your mother has made this triumphant stroke, and booked old Longueville for Innocent——”
“Ernest! I will not permit such words——”