Edgar made no reply to this praise. There was a little pause of expectation, an occasional hush in the room, which one and another attempted to break by snatches of conversation, perpetually interrupted. They can’t expect me to make the plunge before them all, Edgar mused to himself, with a sense of fun which was very inappropriate to the gravity of the position. And after all, when he came to think of it, it would be very difficult to make this plunge. What could he say? Gussy and he had been upon the easiest, the friendliest terms. He did not see how he could alter that ground all at once, and assume a vein of high sentiment. There was in reality so little sentiment in his mind. He was not impassioned; and it occurred to him all at once that to ask a girl to marry him in this perfectly calm and humdrum way would not be flattering to the girl. Gussy, no doubt, would expect something very different. She would expect a lover’s fervour, the excitement of a man whose happiness for life depended on her Yea or Nay; and Edgar felt that his happiness did not depend upon it. Altogether, it was an embarrassing position. Conversation languished in the Thornleigh drawing-room, and the family gave furtive glances at him, and tried to look indifferent, and betrayed itself. As for Gussy, she never looked at him at all. She had given up her tea-making, though she still sat at the table, with the tray before her, which was a fortunate shield; but her eyes were bent upon her work, and she was as silent as a mouse in her corner, conscious to her finger-points, and expectant too.
It was a relief when old Lady Vere came in, and her daughters, who were much of the same age as Mary and Beatrice, and instantly drew off the attention of those two sharp-eyed young women. Lady Vere, too, kept Lady Augusta in occupation, and had something to say to Helena. So that when Edgar brought her cup back to the tea-table, it was quite natural that he should glide into the vacant chair, and keep Gussy company. “Are you sorry to leave town?” he said; and Gussy gave a shy, blushing, trustful glance into his face, which made him draw his chair a little closer. He was fond of her! not impassioned, but yet—what a dear little girl she was!
“Sorry for some things,” Gussy said, “but not so sorry as Mary and Beatrice are. One’s first season is always delightful; one feels as if it would all last for ever.”
“Do you? I think I have that feeling too, but only because it is so dreary, so flat, so banal, always the same thing over again,” said Edgar. “I think life must be waiting for us—real life, not this dull routine—at home.”
“Yes, perhaps,” said Gussy faintly—for every word he said seemed to be more and more weighted with meaning. He did not say absolutely, “the real life I speak of is our life together, the existence in which we two shall be one,” but could anything be more clear than that he meant it so? Her voice sank in spite of herself. Gussy was not in the least impassioned either, but what she thought was—“How dearly he must love me, to be able to give up town and everything for my sake! Poor dear boy, that is all he is thinking of; and oh, I am not so good as he is. I am thinking of a great many other things besides him.”
Thus, with the very best motives in the world, they went on deceiving each other. Not much was said over the tea-table except such broken scraps of talk as this—talk which meant next to nothing, and yet was supposed by the listeners on both sides to mean a great deal. “Ada is anxious to get back to her schools and her poor people,” Gussy said. “She is so good! She has done nothing but work for the children even here. People ought to be happy, don’t you think, that give themselves up like that, and think only of others? They must get to be happy because they are so good.”
“I hope so,” said Edgar, with a certain doubtfulness; “but, above all, those who are more happy should be good to her. One like her seems a sacrifice for others, securing their happiness. I mean——”
“Oh, I know what you mean,” said Gussy, clasping her hands; “and indeed it is no trouble to be good to Ada; we all love her so. Sometimes I feel as if it would be wicked to be very happy while she sits there——”
And they both turned to look at the sister who sat cheerful in the corner making little frocks. She was laughing at the moment, showing one of the Miss Veres how to shape a little sleeve. Gussy, who believed herself to stand on the very threshold of so different a world, felt her heart overflow with love and compassion. “Dear Ada,” she said to herself; only schools and poor children’s frocks for Ada, while she herself was to have every delight. Edgar’s feelings were different. If circumstances were so to arrange themselves as that he should be Ada’s brother, he would be very good to her. She would find in him a friend who would never alter, who would stand by her steadily, doing all that brother could do to make her lonely path more easy. Involuntarily there rose before Edgar the vision of an after-life, with new interests in it and new duties; a new race of Ardens curiously different from the old, a warm household place for Ada and for everybody, a centre of domestic kindness. That was what the house of a country gentleman, the natural head of a community, ought to be. He smiled over the imagination, and yet it came naturally and pleasantly to his mind. Gussy, who was not more than a pretty girl now, would be the sweetest, kindest, most charming matron—like her own mother, but younger, and prettier, and more sweet; and the house would be full of pleasant tumult and society. He did not quite clearly identify himself, but that was, perhaps, because of the laugh that gradually broadened in his eyes at the thought. And to think that this arose simply out of Ada’s face in the corner, and the impulse of making life brighter for her! Then he roused up, and saw that Gussy was looking the same way, and that her pretty eyes were full of tears. How sweet, and good, and tender-hearted she was! They were women whom a man could trust his honour and happiness to without a doubt or fear. Never surely was there a stranger wooing. When their eyes met, Gussy blushed, and so did Edgar. Had they both been seeing in a vision the house that was not yet, the unborn faces, the unlighted fire? But then more visitors came in, and more tea was wanted, and nothing decisive could be said then and there. “I suppose you are going to the Lowestofts’ to-night,” Lady Augusta said, as he took leave of her; for she, too, saw clearly that nothing could possibly be settled in the drawing-room, under the eyes of all the family. “So it need not be good-bye yet. Of course we shall see you there.”
And thus everything drew on towards the evident termination. If Edgar had been consulted on the subject before hand, he would have said that to enact his love drama, or at least its decisive scene, at a ball, would have been the very last thing in the world he was likely to do—just as it would have seemed absolutely impossible to him, had he foreseen it, to forestall love in the way which he was doing, and put affection in its place. But he did not seem to have any will of his own at all in the matter. He was pleasantly drawn on by a tide which carried him towards Gussy, which made her inevitable, and his position unmistakeable. Not only was it expected of him, but he expected himself to take this step. The only thing he was doubtful of was how to do it. He could not possibly say to a girl so charming and worthy of all homage that he was very fond of her, and yet did not love her in the least as a lover should. If he did, it would be an insult, not such a lovesuit as could be accepted. Therefore, he would be obliged to put aside his true feeling, and produce an utterly false one, out of compliment to her; and how was he to do it? All the rest he could do willingly, pleasantly, with perfect consent of his mind and affections; but how was he to be false to her, to pretend to feelings which were not his? This occupied his mind all the rest of the afternoon, and gave him the greatest possible trouble. And at the same time it was evident that the crisis had come, and that he must speak. He sent her a bouquet as the first step, which was very easy and pleasant. If it had been diamonds and rubies instead of flowers, he would have done it with still greater goodwill. He would give her anything, everything—Arden itself, and his liberty and his life; but how was he to get himself up to a lover’s pitch of excitement, and offer her his heart?