“I fear, sir, that my papa would scarcely look favourably on such——”
“Probably not, madam. Have you, by the way, any objection to telling me why you have persisted in refusing, ever since you reached here, to make any of your adorers happy?”
“That, sir, is entirely my own affair.”
“Oh, pardon me, madam. From something Mrs Hurstwood let drop, I picked up the notion that it might also be mine.”
Have you ever heard anything like the assurance of the man, my dear? “Sir,” I said, “I’m not answerable for what any one else may have told you, but I should be false to my sex if I showed any favour to one that has behaved as you have done, and testified so little penitence after it. You’ll allow me to say that a more contrite and humble carriage would have become you better this morning, and indeed, Sylvia Freyne’s own constitution en’t so meek as to offer much prospect of happiness to a gentleman that can come to entreat forgiveness with so stubborn and resolved an air.”
“You’re like your sex, madam, who wish to see all men their slaves.”
He spoke angrily, and turning away, but I fancied not so resolutely as before. I watched to see whether he would turn back. If he had—if by one word or glance he had shown his sorrow—why then, Amelia, your Sylvia would have thrown reserve to the winds, in spite of all her fine words. I’m not naturally exacting, I think, my dear—I don’t desire to humiliate the poor man; but what could one hope for from a person that could make an unhappy creature suffer, as he has made me, merely to glorify his own punctilio, and utter no word of regret? I would have given the world to call after him as he went down the steps, but if he’s proud—why, so am I.
I was still leaning against the wall (I don’t know how long Mr Fraser had been gone) when my papa comes back to tiffing.
“Well, miss,” he cried, as he came up the steps, “so all Calcutta is ringing with your doings, hey? Sure two dozen, at least, of my friends have been so obliging as to tell me that you’re about to present me Lieutenant Bentinck as a son-in-law. We all hear our own news later than the rest of the world.”
“If Mr Bentinck is to be your son-in-law, sir, you must have some other daughter than me, for I en’t going to be married to him.”