He was composed enough to remember that he had not put his pipe in its case--composed enough to set that little matter right before other matters went any farther. He took the case out of one pocket, and the pipe out of another.
"Go on," he said, quietly. "I hear you."
She struck the pipe out of his hand at a blow. If she had had the strength she would have struck him down with it on the floor of the summer-house.
"How dare you use me in this way?" she burst out, vehemently. "Your conduct is infamous. Defend it if you can!"
He made no attempt to defend it. He looked, with an expression of genuine anxiety, at the fallen pipe. It was beautifully colored--it had cost him ten shillings. "I'll pick up my pipe first," he said. His face brightened pleasantly--he looked handsomer than ever--as he examined the precious object, and put it back in the case. "All right," he said to himself. "She hasn't broken it." His attitude as he looked at her again, was the perfection of easy grace--the grace that attends on cultivated strength in a state of repose. "I put it to your own common-sense, " he said, in the most reasonable manner, "what's the good of bullying me? You don't want them to hear you, out on the lawn there--do you? You women are all alike. There's no beating a little prudence into your heads, try how one may."
There he waited, expecting her to speak. She waited, on her side, and forced him to go on.
"Look here," he said, "there's no need to quarrel, you know. I don't want to break my promise; but what can I do ? I'm not the eldest son. I'm dependent on my father for every farthing I have; and I'm on bad terms with him already. Can't you see it yourself? You're a lady, and all that, I know. But you're only a governess. It's your interest as well as mine to wait till my father has provided for me. Here it is in a nut-shell: if I marry you now, I'm a ruined man."
The answer came, this time.
"You villain if you don't marry me, I am a ruined woman!"
"What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean. Don't look at me in that way."
"How do you expect me to look at a woman who calls me a villain to my face?"
She suddenly changed her tone. The savage element in humanity--let the modern optimists who doubt its existence look at any uncultivated man (no matter how muscular), woman (no matter how beautiful), or child (no matter how young)--began to show itself furtively in his eyes, to utter itself furtively in his voice. Was he to blame for the manner in which he looked at her and spoke to her? Not he! What had there been in the training of his life (at school or at college) to soften and subdue the savage element in him? About as much as there had been in the training of his ancestors (without the school or the college) five hundred years since.
It was plain that one of them must give way. The woman had the most at stake--and the woman set the example of submission.
"Don't be hard on me," she pleaded. "I don't mean to be hard on you. My temper gets the better of me. You know my temper. I am sorry I forgot myself. Geoffrey, my whole future is in your hands. Will you do me justice?"
She came nearer, and laid her hand persuasively on his arm.
"Haven't you a word to say to me? No answer? Not even a look?" She waited a moment more. A marked change came over her. She turned slowly to leave the summer-house. "I am sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Delamayn. I won't detain you any longer."
He looked at her. There was a tone in her voice that he had never heard before. There was a light in her eyes that he had never seen in them before. Suddenly and fiercely he reached out his hand, and stopped her.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
She answered, looking him straight in the face, "Where many a miserable woman has gone before me. Out of the world."
He drew her nearer to him, and eyed her closely. Even his intelligence discovered that he had brought her to bay, and that she really meant it!
"Do you mean you will destroy yourself?" he said.
"Yes. I mean I will destroy myself."
He dropped her arm. "By Jupiter, she does mean it!"
With that conviction in him, he pushed one of the chairs in the summer-house to her with his foot, and signed to her to take it. "Sit down!" he said, roughly. She had frightened him--and fear comes seldom to men of his type. They feel it, when it does come, with an angry distrust; they grow loud and brutal, in instinctive protest against it. "Sit down!" he repeated. She obeyed him. "Haven't you got a word to say to me?" he asked, with an oath. No! there she sat, immovable, reckless how it ended--as only women can be, when women's minds are made up. He took a turn in the summer-house and came back, and struck his hand angrily on the rail of her chair. "What do you want?"
"You know what I want."
He took another turn. There was nothing for it but to give way on his side, or run the risk of something happening which might cause an awkward scandal, and come to his father's ears.
"Look here, Anne," he began, abruptly. "I have got something to propose."
She looked up at him.
"What do you say to a private marriage?"
Without asking a single question, without making objections, she answered him, speaking as bluntly as he had spoken himself:
"I consent to a private marriage."
He began to temporize directly.
"I own I don't see how it's to be managed--"
She stopped him there.
"I do!"
"What!" he cried out, suspiciously. "You have thought of it yourself, have you?"
"Yes."
"And planned for it?"
"And planned for it!"
"Why didn't you tell me so before?"
She answered haughtily; insisting on the respect which is due to women--the respect which was doubly due from him, in her position.
"Because you owed it to me, Sir, to speak first."
"Very well. I've spoken first. Will you wait a little?"
"Not a day!"
The tone was positive. There was no mistaking it. Her mind was made up.
"Where's the hurry?"
"Have you eyes?" she asked, vehemently. "Have you ears? Do you see how Lady Lundie looks at me? Do you hear how Lady Lundie speaks to me? I am suspected by that woman. My shameful dismissal from this house may be a question of a few hours." Her head sunk on her bosom; she wrung her clasped hands as they rested on her lap. "And, oh, Blanche!" she moaned to herself, the tears gathering again, and falling, this time, unchecked. "Blanche, who looks up to me! Blanche, who loves me! Blanche, who told me, in this very place, that I was to live with her when she was married!" She started up from the chair; the tears dried suddenly; the hard despair settled again, wan and white, on her face. "Let me go! What is death, compared to such a life as is waiting for me?" She looked him over, in one disdainful glance from head to foot; her voice rose to its loudest and firmest tones." Why, even you; would have the courage to die if you were in my place!"
Geoffrey glanced round toward the lawn.
"Hush!" he said. "They will hear you!"
"Let them hear me! When I am past hearing them, what does it matter?"
He put her back by main force on the chair. In another moment they must have heard her, through all the noise and laughter of the game.
"Say what you want," he resumed, "and I'll do it. Only be reasonable. I can't marry you to-day."
"You can!"
"What nonsense you talk! The house and grounds are swarming with company. It can't be!"
"It can! I have been thinking about it ever since we came to this house. I have got something to propose to you. Will you hear it, or not?"
"Speak lower!"
"Will you hear it, or not?"
"There's somebody coming!"
"Will you hear it, or not?"
"The devil take your obstinacy! Yes!"
The answer had been wrung from him. Still, it was the answer she wanted--it opened the door to hope. The instant he had consented to hear her her mind awakened to the serious necessity of averting discovery by any third person who might stray idly into the summer-house. She held up her hand for silence, and listened to what was going forward on the lawn.