“Precisely; and what does the minx do? She hangs about the avenue until she spies you coming, and then salutes you with a pistol shot! She repels your politeness with the most uncouth rudeness! In order still further to embarrass and disgust you, she coolly tells O’Twist that you are not always in your right senses, and desires him to keep his eye on you whenever he has the opportunity of doing so, particularly during meal-times, lest you should snatch up a knife, and attempt to murder one of us! A better tool than O’Twist for her sorry purposes she couldn’t have hit upon. He is not only credulous, but superstitious, and, but for this discovery, would have teazed your soul out of you. The idiot believes every word she says, and obeys her injunctions with even more zeal than she could have hoped for. She had told him to enter your room at night (not doubting he would awaken and terrify you), and pull down your blind, should he find it up, lest the moonshine should unduly excite you. The trick was so far clever, that she might depend at least upon both of you thinking the other mad. God knows how the joke might have ended, had you lost your temper. Then again, when I ask her to play and sing, she breaks into hideous noises, so resolved is she that you shall think her repulsive in every possible point of view.”
“No, no. Not from every point of view—she couldn’t deform her beauty. But the truth is, she wanted to drive me out of the house.”
“Yes, that was her object; and it is impossible to conjecture what other tricks she might not have played you, had you not told her you were in love with Conny.” (I blushed. Somehow or other I felt ashamed that he should know this.) “Then her false character fell from her. She saw the blunder she had perpetrated, the unnecessary cruelty of her tricks; her own conduct terrified her, and I pledge you my word, when I left her, she was crying like a child.”
“Oh, pray,” I cried, starting up, “let me go and assure her——”
“Let her cry,” he interrupted me. “There may be more hysteria than remorse in her tears—though I am sure she is sorry enough. She imposed too heavy a part on herself; the imposture was too much for her strength. She never could have persisted in it. Her true nature would have broken through and would have betrayed her extraordinary motives.”
“While her deception lasted, it was very clever. I really gave her credit for being the unmannerly young person she enacted. To be sure, I found it hard to reconcile her beauty with her gross behaviour, and, no doubt, had she carried on her deceit much longer, I should have found her out. But, before that could have happened, she would have gained her object, for I had fully made up my mind to leave you to-day.”
“Nonsense! I wouldn’t have permitted it. I noticed that her behaviour was very extraordinary; but to tell you frankly the truth, I thought the whole thing a mere piece of coquetry. After that singing bout of hers, I was persuaded that her reason for acting so strangely was merely to make her real nature and capacities more striking, by the force of contrast when she chose to exhibit them. Women will descend to any absurdities to gain admiration.”
“She evidently didn’t want me to admire her,” said I, laughing.
“Not the least galling part of the business is the doubt her deceit implies of me. Could she—could you imagine for a moment that I could ever sanction her marriage with a man she didn’t love? If she can suspect that I would part with her on commercial grounds only, she does me a far greater wrong than she has done you.”
“It is her reserve that has brought all this about,” said I. “Had she asked a few questions, nothing could have happened to trouble us.”