‘O, he’s all right!’ answered George, entering the drawing-room. ‘No one is ill, or dead, or that kind of thing; so make your mind easy. Besides, it’s only nine o’clock, and you don’t call that late, do you?’
His manner was peculiar, and she noticed that he hardly looked her in the face. Closing the room door, she stood facing him on the hearthrug, and by his side she looked a queen. The miserable young man was immediately submerged in the sense of inferiority irksome to him, and he looked at once cowed and savage.
‘Well, George, what is it?’ continued Alma. ‘I suppose it’s some new trouble about yourself. Uncle told me the other day you were rather worried about money, and I offered to help you out of it if I could.’
George threw himself on a sofa and leant forward, sucking the end of his cane.
‘It isn’t that,’ he replied. ‘If it were, you know I shouldn’t come to you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because I have no right, Alma; you have never given me any right. I hope you don’t think me mean enough to sponge upon you because you happen, to be my cousin, and much richer than I am! But I am your cousin, after all, and I think I have a right to protect you, when I see you likely to get into trouble.’
This was quite a magnificent speech for George Craik; for anger and moral indignation had made him eloquent. Alma looked down upon him in all the pleasurable pride of her beauty, half smiling; for to her poor George was always a small boy, whose attempts to lecture her were absurd. Her arms and neck were bare, there were jewels on her neck and heaving bosom, her complexion was dazzlingly clear and bright, and altogether she looked superb. There was a large mirror opposite to her, covering half the side of the room; and within it another Alma, her counterpart, shone dimly in the faint pink light of the lamps, with their rose-coloured shades.
George Craik was obtuse in some respects, but he did not fail to notice that his cousin was unusually resplendent. She had never been extravagant in her toilette, and he had seldom seen her in such bright colours as on the present occasion. Everything about her betokened an abundant happiness, which she could scarcely conceal.
‘What do you mean by getting into trouble?’ she inquired carelessly. ‘Surely I am old enough to take care of myself.’