"We never know what is the will of the Lord, until we console ourselves with it. Not that I am a scoffer or even a sceptic, Mr. Cranleigh. And in some of the greatest moments of my life—but I will not bother you with them. Only I may say that I look upon this as the very greatest of them all. I don't want to make a fool of myself—but—perhaps the Lord has done it for me."
He tried to make a little smile of this, and looked as if he wanted me to help him out. But I could only stare, and wonder whether any man ever born is at all times right in his head. For if anybody could be expected to know what he is about at all times, I should have thought that man would be Jackson Stoneman of the Stock Exchange. So I waited, as my manner is, for him to make good sense of this.
Then he got up from his bench and set his face (which had been quivering) as firm as the Funds, and looked down at me—for I was in my Windsor chair again—and his eyes seemed to flash defiance at me, although his voice was tender.
"George Cranleigh, you may think what you like. I care not a rap what anybody thinks. I love your sister Grace, as no man ever loved a woman, or ever will."
My amazement was so great and sudden that I looked at him without a word. For a moment I was beaten out of time by this strong man's intensity.
"I know all the stuff that you will say," he went on with scanty politeness. "That I have not seen her more than half-a-dozen times. That I have no right to lift my eyes to her. That even a mint of money can never make up for the want of birth. That I am nothing but an upstart. That I may be a rogue for all you know. That she is a million times too good, and pure, and beautiful for such a fellow. Go on, go on; I would rather have it over."
"But I have not begun yet, and you give me no time," I answered very steadily, having now recovered myself, and objecting to have my arguments forestalled. "You seem to forget yourself, Mr. Stoneman. There is no necessity for excitement. That a man of the world like you——"
"That is the very point. That's what makes my chance so bad. There is nothing of romance or sweet sentiment about me. I don't know anything about hearts and darts. I have no poetical ideas. I could not fling myself off a rock—if there was one. I don't know how to couch a lance. I am pretty sure, though I have never tried, that I couldn't do a sonnet, at any price. And if I did, and it leaked out, it would be the ruin of my business."
"You can buy a sweet sonnet for five shillings, as good as they make them nowadays, but a little common-sense is better than a thousand sonnets; and of that, when you are at all yourself, you must have a very large supply. Now sit down, and let us talk this out. At first it came to me as a very great surprise. It was about the last thing that I could have expected. But I think you were wise in coming first to me."
When I look back upon this interview, it often astonishes me that I should have been able so quietly to take the upper hand with a man not only my elder and of tenfold experience in the world, but also before me in natural gifts, and everything that one could think of, except bodily strength and the accident of birth. Nevertheless I did at once, after that weak confession of his, take a decided lead upon him. Why? Because he was plunged into love—a quicksand out of which no man attempts to pull another, being well aware what he would get for his pains, and rather inclined to make sport of him, whenever it may be done, without harm to oneself.