“Good God!” cried Lady Curtis, starting to her feet, and her excitement was so strong that the exclamation may be forgiven her. “His word! when his whole career and happiness are at stake—to a creature like that!”
“I knew that was what you were going to say,” came to him, in a sigh, from the dim light in the window, against which, herself a shadow, Lucy was. And this, though there was no word of encouragement in it, gave Durant strength.
“I understand your feeling,” he said, addressing her mother, “I thought the same when I went there; but Lady Curtis—”
“Don’t speak to me, don’t speak to me!” she cried, “they have entrapped you too; you have encouraged him in his folly;—his word!”
She walked up and down the room in a fit of impatience, her hands clasped, and inarticulate moans came from her unawares. The firelight seemed to get stronger and warmer as the daylight waned, and it was against this glow that they saw her figure in her excitement. They—for Lucy kept still in the window putting up her hand furtively to dry her eyes, not joining herself to her mother. She had put herself silently, he felt it, on his side. In another minute Lady Curtis sat down again, dropping impatiently into her chair. “Well!” she said almost harshly, “how about his word?”
“Do not be angry with me,” said Durant quite humbly. He could afford to be humble with Lucy backing him up. “I have not betrayed to him this feeling, which—if it is fantastic I cannot help it.” Here Lucy made a slight movement which seemed to him to imply a “no, no,” “I have acted against it. It was not in my mind at first. But if you will consider the circumstances—There is nothing which can be called entrapping. Nothing has been done to deceive him, all the reverse; and he has engaged himself to this girl voluntarily, made every kind of promise to her. Can I bid him withdraw now, perjure himself, deceive her?”
“Tut! tut!” said Lady Curtis, “don’t deceive yourself with big words; all this solemnity is unnecessary. They are not accustomed to it in that class of society; a little arrangement with the family, an offer of so much—Do you really think more would be wanted? Mr. Durant, you are too romantic. How I wish I had gone myself!”
“You would have done no good had you gone yourself. Even if you could have persuaded the family, there is Arthur to deal with—and her—He loves her, Lady Curtis, there is no sham on Arthur’s part.”
“Fiddlesticks!” she cried, rising again in restless excitement. “Arthur, a boy, a light-hearted creature that would mend of any heartbreak in a week; and she—of course I don’t know her—but there is nothing so good for wounded feelings, or so healing, as banknotes.”
“Mamma!” said Lucy, holding out her hands with a mute entreaty; and then she added, “If you offered them money, what would Arthur say?”