"I think you must have vowed to drive me crazy," cried the exasperated brother. "Put aside for once that confounded vanity of yours—as if a man had always leisure to look at your playing the fool." While he spoke in this unusual way, he got up, as was natural, and took one or two steps across the narrow space which was shut in by those luxuriant heaps of clematis; and Mrs Woodburn, for her part, withdrew her chair out of his way in equal heat and indignation.
"You have always the leisure to play the fool yourselves, you men," she said. "Vanity, indeed! as if it were not simply to show you that one can laugh at him without being stricken with thunder. But leave that if you like. You know quite well if you married Lucilla Marjoribanks that there would be no more about it. There could be no more about it. Why, all Grange Lane would be in a sort of way pledged to you. I don't mean to say I am attached to Lucilla, but you used to be, or to give yourself out for being. You flirted with her dreadfully in the winter, I remember, when those terrible Woodburns were here," she continued, with a shiver. "If you married Lucilla and got into Parliament, you might laugh at all the archdeacons in the world."
"It is very easy for a woman to talk," said the reluctant wooer again.
"I can tell you something it is not easy to do," cried his sister. "It is frightfully hard for a woman to stand by and see a set of men making a mess of things, and not to dare to say a word till all is spoiled. What is this Archdeacon, I would like to know, or what could he say? If you only would have the least courage, and look him in the face, he would be disabled. As if no one had ever heard of mistaken identity before? And in the meantime go and see Lucilla, and get her consent. I can't do that for you; but I could do a great deal of the rest, if you would only have a little pluck and not give in like this."
"A little pluck, by George!" cried the unfortunate man, and he threw himself down again upon his chair. "I am not in love with Lucilla Marjoribanks, and I don't want to marry her," he added doggedly, and sat beating a tune with his fingers on the table, with but a poorly-assumed air of indifference. As for Mrs Woodburn, she regarded him with a look of contempt.
"Perhaps you will tell me who you are in love with," she said disdainfully; "but I did not ask to be taken into your confidence in such an interesting way. What I wish to know is, whether you want a wife who will keep your position for you. I am not in the least fond of her, but she is very clever. Whether you want the support of all the best people in Carlingford, and connections that would put all that to silence, and a real position of your own which nobody could interfere with—that is what I want to know, Harry; as for the sentimental part, I am not so much interested about that," said Mrs Woodburn, with a contemptuous smile. She was young still, and she was handsome in her way (for people who liked that style), and it jarred a little on the natural feelings to hear a young wife express herself so disdainfully; but, to be sure, her brother was not unaccustomed to that.
"You said once that Woodburn was necessary to your happiness," he said, with a mixture of scorn and appeal, "though I can't say I saw it, for my part."
"Did I?" she said, with a slight shrug of her shoulders; "I saw what was necessary on another score, as you don't seem to do. When a man has nobody belonging to him, it is connections he ought to try for: and Lucilla has very good connections; and it would be as good as securing the support of Grange Lane. Do it for my sake, Harry, if you won't do it for your own," said Mrs Woodburn, with a change of tone. "If you were to let things be said, and give people an advantage, think what would become of me. Woodburn would not mind so much if somebody else were involved; but oh, Harry! if he should find out he had been cheated, and he only——"
"He was not cheated! You were always a great deal too good for him, Nelly," said Mr Cavendish, touched at last at an effectual point; "and as for his friends and family, and all that——"
"Oh, please, don't speak of them," said Mrs Woodburn, with a shudder; "but there are only two of us in the world; and, Harry, for my sake——"