“If you are jesting, I am tired of it. Can’t you see I don’t want to talk. Don’t you understand you have said enough? Do be content. I wish I hadn’t a penny of money, and that I had never told you.”
I now became aware that I was on the horns of a dilemma; I had gone too far, as a stupid man will who thinks he is on the track of a joke. The dear girl was on the verge of tears, and I saw that if I suddenly proclaimed the jest her sorrow would turn into anger against me, and my last state might be worse than my first. I had got this joke by the tail, and the whole dilemma arose through not knowing whether it was safer to hang on or let go. I quickly decided to hang on. I trusted to escape by reason of our national reputation for unreadiness, and determined to stand to my guns and proclaim that all along I had been speaking of my own fortune and not of hers. My obtuseness she would pity and forgive, but ill-timed levity and trifling with her most cherished feelings on this day of all others might produce consequences I dared not face.
“Hilda,” I said, with what dignity I could bring to my command, “you actually seem sorry at my good fortune. I assure you I expected you would rejoice with me. When I spoke to you this morning I was to all intents and purposes a penniless man, and yet, as Mr. Hemster himself informed you, I had but an hour before refused two hundred and fifty thousand dollars as a bribe. That money was but half of the fortune which this man Cammerford had previously looted from me. Now, through a few simple words in the letter Mr. Hemster wrote to him, this man is going to refund the whole half million, with interest for three years at six per cent. Therefore, my darling, imagine the delight with which I learned of this great stroke of good luck. No living person could assert here or hereafter that I was an impecunious fortune-hunter, although equally, of course, no person could have convinced you that your money weighed a particle with me when I asked you to honour me as you have done. And now, really perhaps I am too sensitive, but it seems to me that you do not take the news so kindly as I had expected.”
She swayed a moment, then sank helplessly down into the armchair again.
“Rupert,” she said, looking across at me with a puzzled pathos in her eyes that made me ashamed of myself; “Rupert, what are you talking about? Or am I dreaming? What half million is this you are referring to? I told you that my fortune was two or three times the hundred thousand, but I supposed you had found out its real value. Now you seem to have been speaking of something else.”
“Hilda,” I cried, with a horror that I hope was well simulated,—Lord forgive me for the necessity of using it,—“Hilda, you never supposed for a moment that I was referring to your money?”
Her troubled face seemed fixed on something intangible in the distance, as if her mind were trying to recall our conversation, that she might find some point in what I had said to account for the mistake she supposed herself to have made. The double meaning of my words was apparent enough, but of course every sentence I had uttered applied to her money equally well with my own. Now that enlightenment had come, her supposed error became obtrusively plain to her. She turned her puzzled face to me, and her expression melted into one of great tenderness as she reached forward her two hands and laid her palms on the back of mine, which rested on the wicker table.
“Rupert,” she said in a low voice, “will you forgive me? I have deeply misjudged you.”
“Hilda,” said I, “would you have forgiven me if I had been in the wrong?”