“The girl?”
“Yes, the girl. It sounds brutal, I know; but she is just the kind of girl whom one would tremble to have anything to do with. Beautiful, passionate, uneducated, undisciplined, taught to think of nothing but the gratification of the moment. I am afraid of such a creature. The Lorelei is a joke to her. When you got into the hands of the syrens you were doomed, and there was an end of you; but a woman like that with the command of a man’s life——”
“Oh, Mr. Vane!” cried Nelly, with her hands clasped, following every movement of his lips with her eyes, breathless in her interest; and then she burst suddenly into hot, momentary tears, and cried, “Poor Frederick! Poor Frederick!” wringing her hands.
Mr. Vane got up hurriedly from his chair. “Miss Eastwood, don’t think I heard you, or will ever recollect, or attempt to connect with what we have been saying”—he began. Then looking at Nelly, who was crying, the man’s heart melted within him. “If it will do you any good or give you any ease, tell me,” he said, going up to her, and standing behind her; “you may trust me never to say anything.”
“Oh, yes, I can trust you,” said Nelly; and then clasped her hands, and looked up at him. “You are a man; you are a connexion; you are supposed to know better than we women do. Could you speak to him, Mr. Vane?”
He looked at her again, and shook his head. What could he say? “I am not a friend, and no one but a friend could interfere. Even a friend would not be listened to in such a case,” he said; and then he added, “If he loves her, he may have an influence upon her; he may be able to make something better of her. And your influence and your mother’s——”
Poor Nelly shivered. “It is not entirely of Frederick I am thinking,” she said with a low, suppressed moan; “I am selfish too.”
Mr. Vane seized his hat suddenly, and shook hands with her, and rushed away! Nelly could not imagine why. She thought he was unfeeling, and she was very, very vexed and angry with herself for having confided in him. The last words had escaped her in spite of herself; but, then, he could attach no meaning to them, she was sure.
When Frederick came home that evening there was a grand éclaircissement, not of a perfectly peaceable nature. He accused his mother of having sent Dick as a spy after him to find out his movements, an accusation which had a certain truth in it. Dick fortunately was shut up in his room with his cold, so that no quarrel between the brothers was possible. When Frederick intimated that he was an accepted lover, and that his marriage was to take place in six weeks, his mother and sister made an appeal to him, into which I need not enter. After a little fine indignation and heroic defence of his Amanda, Frederick became attendri, and gave her up to them as a burnt offering, and presented himself in the aspect of a martyr of honour, as men are in the habit of doing; and they ended by taking his part, and weeping over him, and consoling him. They agreed to endeavour to “make the best of it,” to “stand by the poor boy.” Where is the family that has not in one way or other had a similar task to perform?
There was but one other member of the house by whom the intelligence had yet to be received. Innocent heard it without any appearance of emotion. She had been wistfully curious about Frederick’s absence, and had wandered about the garden disconsolately in the evenings, baffling by her strange deadness and silence all the attempts which the others made to replace him. Jenny, who had by this time come home for the holidays, did more for her than any of the others. He announced in the family that he meant to experiment upon her; he took her out into the avenue, and declaimed Homer to her, to try what effect would be produced,—and he said she liked it; I am of opinion also that she did. She had begun to feel a certain solace in company so long as no response was demanded from her, and no attempt made to interest her and make her take part in feelings and opinions totally unknown. Jenny and his Greek were a consolation to her; she did not understand, therefore she would not be asked to feel, and he required no answer. She went through two or three days of this after Frederick’s marriage was announced, and I suppose in the silence her faltering thoughts took shape; for Jenny was nothing to her, nor Ellinor, nor their mother, no one but Frederick—and slowly she began to feel that this strange new event would separate her from him. It was from Dick that at last she asked help for the solution of her thoughts.