Once more she repeated his last word with a certain contempt. “Rude! The man is a tradesman. They have thrust themselves into the village; and now they have seized an opportunity—which was in reality no opportunity—to thrust themselves into the house. Edgar, I have no patience; I ought not to have patience. They have been impertinent. And you as civil as if they were the best people in the county—and going to dine with them! I did not expect this.”
“I am sorry, Clare, if it hurts you,” he said. “They seemed very kind; and how could I help it? Besides, you made them very uncomfortable, and I owed them amends. And you know I am but an indifferent Arden; I have not any horror of trade.”
“You told them so!” said Clare—“you took people like these into your confidence, and confessed to them that you were not an Arden like the rest of us! Oh, please, Edgar, don’t! you might think how unhappy it makes me. As if it was not enough——”
“What, Clare?”
“Oh, can’t you understand?” she cried. “Is it not enough to see that you are not a thorough Arden; that you don’t care for the things we care for, nor hate the things we hate. But to have to hear you say so as if it did not matter!—it is the grief of my life.”
And she threw herself into a chair, and cried—weeping a sudden shower of passionate tears, which were so hot and rapid that they seemed to scorch her, yet dried as they fell. Her brother came and stood by her chair, putting his hand softly on her bent head. Edgar was sorry, but not only because she wept. He was grieved, and perplexed, and disappointed. A half smile came over his serious face at her last words. “My poor Clare—my poor Clare,” he repeated softly, smoothing the dark glossy locks of her hair. When the thunder shower was over he spoke, with a voice that sounded more manly and mature and grave than anything Clare had heard from him before.
“You must take my character and my training a little into consideration,” he said. “If I had been brought up like you I might have thought with you. But, Clare, though I love you more than anything in the world, and would not vex you for all Arden, still I cannot change my nature. Arden is only a very small spot in England, dear, not to speak of the world; and I can’t look at the big world through Arden spectacles. You must not ask it of me; anything else I will do to please you. I will give up dining with these people if you wish it. Of course I don’t care for their dinner; but they looked as if they wanted to be kind——”
“They wanted to come to Arden, to know you and me, and get admittance among the county families,” said Clare in one breath.
“Well, perhaps. I suppose we are all mean wretches more or less,” he said. “Suppose we give up the Pimpernels; but you must not ask me to avoid everybody who has anything to do, or to content myself with the old groove. For instance, I like pictures, though you say the Ardens don’t——”
“That is not what I meant,” said Clare, with a blush; “I meant——”