“This,” she said, in a low voice, “is the most terrible demonstration of my poverty and helplessness that has ever been made to me—and the most awful suggestion, as of suicide and destruction.”
“Meg!”
“Don’t, don’t interrupt me! It is: I have never known how little good I was before. I don’t know now if it will kill me, or sting me to life; but all the same,” she cried, her lip quivering, “you are kind, and I thank you with all my heart! and I will promise you this: If I find, as you think, that, whatever I may do, I cannot give my Osy the education he ought to have, I will send and remind you of your offer. I hope you will have children of your own by that time, and perhaps you will have forgotten it.”
“I shall not forget it; and I am very unlikely to have children of my own.”
“Anyhow, I will trust you,” she said, “and I thank you with all my heart, though you are my enemy. And that is a bargain,” she said, holding out her hand.
Her enemy! Was he her enemy? And yet it seemed something else beside.
CHAPTER XXVII.
While these scenes were going on, Mr. and Mrs. Gervase Piercey were very differently employed upstairs. When Patty had finished her tea, and when she had made the survey of the library, concerning which her conclusion was that these horrid bookcases must be cleared away, and that a full-length portrait of herself in the white satin which had not, yet ought to have been, her wedding-dress, would do a great deal for the cheerfulness of the room, she took her husband’s arm, and desired him to conduct her over the house. When Patty saw the drawing-room, which was very large, cold, and light in colour, with chairs and chandeliers in brown holland, she changed her mind about the library. She had not been aware of the existence of this drawing-room.
“This is where we shall sit, of course,” she said.
“Father can’t abide it,” said Gervase.