“Miss Lloyd, I owe you an apology for declaring that I had your picture in my possession. I know now whose picture it is.”
“You should have known it was not mine, sir, when I told you so,” and she blushes again at the thought of Lizzie’s being known. Even when the blame is lifted from herself, she does not rejoice in her cousin’s exposure.
“I did know it, Miss Lloyd; I did believe you, on my soul, against all the wonderful evidence of the remarkable likeness to you. I did believe
that picture was not yours, or that at least you did not send me it, or know of my having it. But how could I know that it was your mother’s name in your book?”
He stops confused. Elinor has never yet known of that added testimony against her. Had she known it, she would at once have told him it was her mother’s name. There was no reason for any mystery concerning that, it being no part of Lizzie’s confidences to her. If he had had that clue, perhaps he might have come to some imperfect glimpse of the truth. In answer to her wondering inquiry, “What book?” he says now humbly:
“You left a book you appeared to own on the piano. I took the liberty of looking at it, and read a name in it which I knew belonged to her whose picture I mistook for yours. Your cousin, Miss Lloyd, is very like and very unlike yourself. I met her a short time since at a party; and even seeing her before me, the original of that picture, I could scarcely believe it was those fair locks which the sun made so dark in her picture. I may certainly be excused for not remembering this trick of photography, especially when you two are in features so very similar.” He says this last pleadingly, because the displeased look is not gone from her face.
“Mr. Schuyler,” she says, “your mistake concerning that picture was more natural and more excusable than your supposing me the writer of that letter, or the giver of that picture. I think, whatever the evidence you may have supposed yourself to possess, my uniform bearing and manner toward you should have freed me from any such supposition on your part. I could not tell you whose picture you had, but I was free to tell you whose name was in my book.”
“But, Miss Lloyd, even if you had given me the chance to ask you, I could scarcely take upon myself the liberty of seeming to make you accountable to myself for any name written in your book. The very asking of that would have seemed an accusation.”
Elinor’s quick sense of justice sees this readily, and her brow clears. Hard as it has been against herself, she admits that it was an entanglement for him. So she says more graciously: “We will let it pass, Mr. Schuyler. I wish the whole matter for all parties could be disposed of as easily as I can pass out of it.” And she endeavors to leave him, with a provoking air of taking no further interest in him or his changed footing toward herself. He gently makes a motion of barring her way. She stands waiting to hear what he has further to say to her, but there is no evidence of any desire to remain.
“It is so long since we have spoken together in this friendly fashion, that I think you need not be in such haste to shorten our conversation.”