“That you don’t want to marry me?” cried Ferrers, laughing, his good-humour quite restored. “No, Pen, I can’t. You’re feeling a little sore now, because you think I’ve neglected you, but you shan’t complain of that in future. I shall make furious love to you all this week, and before I go back to that wretched hole we’ll announce the engagement.”
He was so gay, so well satisfied with himself, so utterly incapable of understanding what she felt, that Penelope’s heart sank. She made a final effort. “Please listen to me,” she faltered. “I ask you definitely to release me from my promise.”
“And I definitely refuse to do anything of the kind. There! is honour satisfied now? You’ve made a brave fight—enough to please even Lady Haigh, I should think—but it’s no good. The fortress has surrendered. I’ll allow you the honours of war, but you mustn’t think you are going to escape scot-free. Come!”
She allowed him passively to kiss her, and then sat down again at the table, utterly exhausted. “Please go away now,” she said. “I will tell Lady Haigh of—what you wish, and no doubt she will arrange for you to come here when you like. I will try—to be a good wife to you.”
“You’d better!” said Ferrers gaily, as he departed. He was conscious of a new and wholly unaccustomed glow of feeling—a highly creditable feeling, too. He was actually in love, and with the very person who would make him the best and most suitable wife he could choose. He had not the slightest faith in the seriousness of Penelope’s resistance, and felt genuinely proud of having overcome what he regarded as her grudge against him. If she had only shown herself capable of indignation and resentment earlier, he would have fallen in love with her long ago. As it was, she might make their engagement as lively as she pleased, and then settle down into an adoring fondness like Colin’s, which would suit him admirably. Meeting Colin, he told him the good news, adding that they had decided not to announce the engagement for a week, as Penelope was still rather sore about their past misunderstandings, and Colin hurried back to the fort, to find Penelope with her head bowed on her arms on the table.
“Why, Pen!” he said in astonishment, “I hoped I should find you so happy.”
Penelope raised her head, and looked at him despairingly. “Oh, Colin!” was all she said. It seemed incredible to her that, after the long years in which they had been all in all to each other, he could be as blind as Ferrers to her real feelings.
“But, Pen, is it right to imagine slights in this way? I know he may have seemed cold, but he thought it his duty to hold aloof. And he has worked so hard and so steadily at Shah Nawaz, looking forward to the time when he might speak to you again. I am sure the thought of you has helped him; I know it. And now you turn against him, when he needs your help as much as ever.”
“I can’t help any one, I am too weak,” moaned Penelope. “I want some one strong, who can help me.”
“A strong man would not need your help,” said Colin, in the slightly didactic tone with which he was wont, all unconsciously, to chill his sister’s feelings. Her heart protested wildly. She could help the strong man of whom she was thinking, she knew, but the opportunity was denied her. “George does need you,” Colin went on, “and will you refuse to help him because he has wounded your self-love?”