‘If you persist in your folly I shall no doubt have that felicity in time.’
‘My father has not taken this view,’ said Crauford. ‘You are very hard upon me, ma’am.’
‘Let me remind you that you have shown no consideration for me throughout the whole matter,’ she replied. ‘I, of course, come last. I ask you again, will you be guided by one who is more fitted to judge than you can be, and put this unjustifiable marriage out of your head?’
She stood waiting; their eyes met, and he cast his down.
‘I must try again,’ he said with ineffective tenacity.
She turned from him and left the room, brown silk, account-book, and all.
He was accustomed to scenes like the one he had just experienced, but generally it was someone else who played the part of victim, not himself. For a week or more the world had used him very badly; his visit to Lady Eliza had been startling, his interview with Cecilia humiliating, and his reception by his mother terrific; even his uncle had maintained an attitude towards him that he could not understand. His thoughts went back to Barclay, the one person who seemed to see him in his true colours, and he longed for him as a man who has had an accident longs for the surgeon to come and bind his wounds. He had left Fullarton hurriedly and now he was sorry for what he had done.
He was certainly not going to accept Cecilia’s mad folly as final; his mother had rated him for his want of pride in not abandoning his suit, but, had she understood him, she would have known that it was his pride which forbade him to relinquish it, and his vanity which assured him that he must be successful in the end. Each man’s pride is a differently constructed article, while each man is certain that his private possession is the only genuine kind existing.
Lady Fordyce’s own pride had received a rude blow, and she looked upon her brother as the director of it; he it was who had thrown her son into the society of the adventuress, he it was who had persuaded her to give unwilling countenance to what she disapproved. From their very infancy he had gone contrary to her. As a little boy he had roused her impatience over every game or task that they had shared. There had always been something in him which she disliked and which eluded her, and one of her greatest grievances against him had been her own inability to upset his temper. She was anything but a clever woman, and she knew that, though his character was weaker than her own, his understanding was stronger. Brother and sister, never alike, had grown more unlike with the years; his inner life had bred a semi-cynical and indolent toleration in him, and her ceaseless worldly prosperity had brought out the arrogance of her nature and developed a vulgarity which revolted Robert.
As her brown silk dress rustled up the staircase, her son, driven into an unwonted rebellion, made up his mind that, having seen his father, he would depart as soon as he could decide where to go. He hankered after Kaims. He had written to Barclay, bidding his ally farewell and telling him of Cecilia’s refusal, and the ally had written a soothing reply. He praised his determination to continue his suit, assured him of his willingness to keep him acquainted with anything bearing on his interests, and, finally, begged him to remember that, at any time or season, however unpropitious, a room in his house would be at his disposal. Protestations of an admiring friendship closed the letter.