“Kate,” he cried in her ear, “don’t hate me for what I am going to say; if I were him, and knew you had listened to another, I should feel how it was, and accept my fate.”
Kate’s hot spirit blazed up, and the tears sprang to her eyes. She drew her hand away almost violently. “That is well,” she cried—“that is well! that you should be the one to blame me for listening; but I shall do it no more.”
“It is because you are driving me half mad,” he said.
And what was Kate to do? It was such a strange sensation to see Fred Huntley, a man of the world, standing there pleading before her, driven half mad. Was it possible? If it had been any other man indeed. But Fred! And his voice was full of emotion, his hands trembled, he pleaded with an earnestness that filled her with mingled pity and curiosity and amaze. “Oh, hush, and don’t think any more of it,” she said. “If you will forget it, I shall. Am I one to make people unhappy? Give me your arm back to the drawing-room, and let us say no more about it. I must not stay longer with you here.”
“I will take you back to the drawing-room,” he said, “and if you say I am to give up hope, I will do it; but, Kate, don’t fix my fate till you know a little better. I am so willing, so very willing, to wait. All I want is that you should know I am here utterly at your command—and you won’t wring my heart talking of him? Yes, do—wring my heart as you please, but don’t send me away. I am willing to wait for my answer as long as you have the heart to keep me—only don’t send me away.”
“Oh! how can you speak of an answer?” cried Kate, under her breath. They were on the threshold of the lighted drawing-room by this time, and perhaps he did not hear that faint protestation. He took her to her seat, not with the covert care which he had been lavishing upon her for so long, but with all the signs of the tenderest devotion. She herself, being excited and distracted by what had just passed, was not aware of the difference; but everybody else was. And they had been a long time together in the conservatory, quite too long for an interview between an engaged young lady and a man who was not her betrothed. And there was a flush upon Kate’s cheeks, and Fred was eager and excited, and kept near her, without any pretence of making himself generally agreeable. And she looked half afraid of him, and would not dance any more—two signs which were very striking. “Depend upon it, something is going on in that quarter,” one of the elder ladies said to the other. “Little jilt!” said the second; and if Lady Winton had been there, who felt herself entitled to speak, Kate would no doubt have heard a great deal more about it before she escaped to her own room to try and realise what it was.
CHAPTER XXIX.
It would be vain to attempt to give any panorama of Kate’s thoughts when she had finally taken refuge in her room, and shut out even her maid. The first fire of the season was chirruping in the grate, and there were a good many candles about, for Kate was fond of a great deal of light. She threw herself into her favourite easy-chair by the fire, and clasped her hands across her forehead, and tried very hard to think. There are many girls, no doubt, who would have felt that Fred Huntley had insulted them by such a declaration, with his full knowledge of all the previous circumstances. But Kate could not cut the knot in that summary manner. He was not insulting her. Before he had said a word, had not she herself taken that alternative into consideration? It was but this very day that she had made that half-envying comparison between herself and the problematical Mrs Fred Huntley; and people do not make such comparisons without some faint notion that a choice might be possible. Besides, Kate was not the kind of girl to be insensible to the reason of the matter. It was perfectly true what Fred Huntley had said. In every way in which the question could be looked at, he was more suitable to her than John. And he would be a great deal easier to get on with. He would not ask so much; he would be quite content with what she could give: whereas the question was, would John ever be content? And Fred would satisfy Mr Crediton, and make everything easy; and nobody knew better than Kate how unlikely it was that John could ever satisfy her father, or that their marriage should take place by anything less than a miracle. The reader will think that she was thus giving up the whole question, but this was not the fact. She was as far from giving John up as she had been a month before, when she went to see him in Camelford; but she had a candid mind, and could not help considering the question on its merits.
And then it would be impossible to deny that she had a kindness for Fred. He had been very “nice” all this autumn—very attentive and assiduous, and anxious to smooth her path for her. To be sure he had not been quite disinterested; but then, when is a man disinterested? One does not expect it of them, Kate reflected; in short, perhaps one prefers, on the whole, that they should look for a reward, to be given or withheld as the idol wills. This sense of power was very strong in Kate’s mind. She liked to think that her hand could dispense life and death; and though the alternative was very thrilling, and made her heart beat loudly, and the blood rush to her face, yet it was not exactly a painful feeling. And then she was very sweet-tempered and sympathetic: it was hard for her to make up her mind to disappoint and grieve any one. She would be sincerely sorry for the man she was obliged to refuse; and if she could have managed it so that Madeline Winton, or any other nice girl with whom she was intimate, should have suited the taste of that man, it would have been a great relief to her. This thought flashed across her mind more than once in her disquietude; a fact which sufficiently shows how different were the feelings with which she regarded the two candidates for her favour. Such a transfer of affection would have been out of the question with John; but it would not be out of the question with Fred.
Then Kate took to thinking of his earnestness, of the look almost of passion in his face. Fred Huntley to look at any woman like that—to say that he was being driven mad—to plead with such humility! No doubt it was a very astounding thought, almost more extraordinary than any amount of devotion from John, who was a passionate being by nature. And then it would be so easy to get on with Fred! he would understand without difficulty those tastes and habits to which John could never do more than assent with a sigh. What a dilemma it was for a girl to be placed in! Kate had clasped her hands over her eyes that she might think the better, and let her fire go out, and was stopped in her cogitations by the chill which stole over her. When she roused herself up the hearth was quite black, and seemed to be giving forth cold instead of warmth—and the candles were all burning silently, with now and then a little twinkling of the small steady flames, as if they were sharers in her secret, and knew more about it than she did. She crept to bed very cold and disturbed and uncomfortable, saying to herself now, Poor John! and now, Poor Fred! with painful impartiality. I think, for my own part, that it said wonders for her real faithfulness that she was thus impartial in her thoughts; for Fred was so much more eligible in every way, so much more suitable, more likely to please everybody, more easy to get on with, that there must have been a wonderful balance of feeling on the other side to keep the scales even. John was a very troublesome, unmanageable lover; he ruffled her by his passion, his fondness, his susceptibilities. She could not marry him except by the sacrifice of many things that were very important to her, and after going through all the agonies of a long, stormy, much-interrupted engagement; whereas everything was smooth and pleasant on the other side. And yet her heart, if it stood tolerably even between them, had not yet swayed one step further off than the middle from her uncomfortable lover; which, considering all Fred’s unmistakable advantages, surely said a great deal for Kate.