Here was a situation! To have a man speaking to you in your own drawing-room in full sight of a score of people, and as good as telling you what men tell in all sorts of covert and secret places, with faltering voice and beating heart. Fred was perfectly steady and still; his voice was a trifle graver than usual—perhaps it might have been called sad; his eyes were fixed upon her with a serious, anxious look; there was no air of jest, no levity, but an aspect of fact which terrified and startled her. Kate fairly broke down under this strange and unexpected test. She gave a frightened glance at him, and put up her fan to hide her face. What was she to say?
“Please, Mr Huntley,” she faltered, “this is not the kind of subject to make jokes about.”
“Do I look like a man who is joking?” he asked. “I do not complain; I have not a word to say. I suppose I have brought it upon myself, buying the delight of your society at any price I could get it for—even the dearest. And you talk to me about another man as if I were made of stone—a man who——”
“Stop, please,” she said, faintly. “I may have been wrong. I never thought—but please don’t say anything of him, whatever you may say to me.”
“You are more afraid of a word breathed against him than of breaking my heart,” said Fred, with some real emotion; and Kate sat still, thunderstruck, taking shelter behind her fan, feeling that every one was looking at her, and that her very ears were burning and tingling. Was he making love to her? she asked herself. Had he any intention of contesting John’s supremacy? or was it a mere remonstrance, a complaint that meant nothing, an outcry of wounded pride and nothing more?
“Mr Huntley,” she said, softly, “if I have given you any pain, I am very sorry. I never meant it. You were so kind, I did not think I was doing wrong. Please forgive me; if there is any harm done it is not with my will.”
“Do you think that mends matters?” said Fred, with now a little indignation mingling in his sadness. “If you put it into plain English, this is what it means:—I was something so insignificant to you, taken up as you were with your own love, that it never occurred to you that I might suffer. You never thought of me at all. If you had said you had meant it, and had taken the trouble to make me miserable, that would have been a little better; at least it would not have been contempt.”
And he turned away from her and sat down at a little table near, and covered his face with his hand. What would everybody think? was Kate’s first thought. Did he mean to hold her up to public notice, to demonstrate that she had used him badly? She bore it for a moment or two in her bewilderment, and then stretched across and touched him lightly with her fan. “Mr Huntley, there are a great many people in the room,” she said. “If we were alone you might reproach me; but surely we need not let these people know—and papa! Mr Huntley, you know very well it was not contempt. Won’t you forgive me—when I ask your pardon with all my heart?”
“Forgive you!” cried Fred; and he raised his head and turned to her, though he did not raise his eyes. “You cannot think it is forgiveness that is wanted—that is mockery.”
“Please don’t say so! I would not mock you for all the world. Oh, Mr Huntley, if it is not forgiveness, what is it?” cried Kate.