"And why not? Are you such a great man?" asked Laura.
"Ah no, Laura, I'm such a poor one," Pen answered. "Haven't you baited me enough already?"
"My dear Pen, and how?" cried Laura. "Indeed, indeed, I didn't think to vex you by such a trifle. I thought such a clever man as you could bear a harmless little joke from his sister," she said, holding her hand out again. "Dear Arthur, if I have hurt you, I beg your pardon."
"It is your kindness that humiliates me more even than your laughter, Laura," Pen said. "You are always my superior."
"What! superior to the great Arthur Pendennis? How can it be possible?" said Miss Laura, who may have had a little wickedness as well as a great deal of kindness in her composition. "You can't mean that any woman is your equal?"
"Those who confer benefits should not sneer," said Pen. "I don't like my benefactor to laugh at me, Laura; it makes the obligation very hard to bear. You scorn me because I have taken your money, and I am worthy to be scorned; but the blow is hard coming from you."
"Money! Obligation! For shame, Pen; this is ungenerous," Laura said, flushing red. "May not our mother claim every thing that belongs to us? Don't I owe her all my happiness in this world, Arthur? What matters about a few paltry guineas, if we can set her tender heart at rest, and ease her mind regarding you? I would dig in the fields, I would go out and be a servant—I would die for her. You know I would," said Miss Laura, kindling up; "and you call this paltry money an obligation? Oh, Pen, it's cruel—it's unworthy of you to take it so! If my brother may not share with me my superfluity, who may?—mine?—I tell you it was not mine; it was all mamma's to do with as she chose, and so is every thing I have," said Laura; "my life is hers." And the enthusiastic girl looked toward the windows of the widow's room, and blessed in her heart the kind creature within.
Helen was looking, unseen, out of that window toward which Laura's eyes and heart were turned as she spoke, and was watching her two children with the deepest interest and emotion, longing and hoping that the prayer of her life might be fulfilled: and if Laura had spoken as Helen hoped, who knows what temptations Arthur Pendennis might have been spared, or what different trials he would have had to undergo? He might have remained at Fairoaks all his days, and died a country gentleman. But would he have escaped then? Temptation is an obsequious servant that has no objection to the country, and we know that it takes up its lodging in hermitages as well as in cities; and that in the most remote and inaccessible desert it keeps company with the fugitive solitary.
"Is your life my mother's," said Pen, beginning to tremble, and speak in a very agitated manner. "You know, Laura, what the great object of hers is?" And he took her hand once more.