'How fond he must be of me!'
Who was this, approaching slowly from the house with steps that hesitated? This was the fatal young man who was under Sir John's protection, and who had repaid the obligation by rousing emotions of jealous rage in Sir John's breast. Mabel was not sure whether she despised him or pitied him. In this difficulty, she took a middle course, and only said, 'What do you want?'
'May I not have the happiness of speaking to you?'
'It depends, Mr Corydon, on what you have to say. I forbid you to speak of Sir John Bosworth; I won't hear you if you speak of yourself; and I shall retire to my room if you speak to me. Have you any harmless remarks to make? Suppose you try the weather?'
Humble Cyril looked up at the sky. 'Beautiful weather,' he said submissively.
'Or politics?' Miss Mabel continued.
'Conservative,' Cyril answered, as if he was saying his catechism.
'Or literature?'
'I haven't got any.'
'What do you mean by that?'
'I mean , I wish I was as well read as you are. Oh, Miss Mabel, don't be so hard on a poor fellow who loves you with all his heart. I didn't mean any harm when I asked Sir John --'
'Be quiet!'
'If there is any sort of atonement that I can make -- if you could only tell me what a young lady wants -- I mean, what she looks for in a young man --'
'She looks, Mr Corydon, for what she doesn't find in you.'
'May I ask what that is?'
'May I ask if you object to the form of vulgarity which is called -- Slang?'
'I object to nothing from You. Pray tell me in what I am deficient.'
'Pluck!'
She looked at him with a moment's saucy attention -- bowed, and returned to the house. Even Cyril discovered that she was not positively angry this time.
VI Sir John Bosworth appeared again on the next day -- with an excellent reason for returning so soon. He had not yet been shown over Oakapple Hall.
On this occasion, the servant conducted him to the music-room. Mabel was at the piano; and Cyril was turning the leaves of the music for her. Sir John had only to look at them, and to suspect that his modest young friend had been gaining ground in his absence. He approached the piano with his genial smile, and examined the music. 'Maiden Musings' was the title; and, in one respect at least, the composer had deserved well of the public of the present day -- he had given them plenty of notes for their money. 'Go on, please,' said the amiable visitor. Mabel went on. Notes that thundered, notes that shrieked, notes in cataracts of sound represented the maiden's musings. 'What were those remarks,' Sir John asked when it was over, 'that Mozart made on the subject of melody? Cyril, my dear fellow, have you got Kelly's Reminiscences in the library? Kelly was Mozart's pupil. Do try to find the book.'
Before he complied with this request, Cyril looked at Mabel, and received a look in return. Then, and only then, he left the room. Sir John saw that he had not a moment to lose. The door was barely closed on his young rival, before he possessed himself of Mabel's hand, and said, 'Oh, forgive me!'
She released her hand, and assumed an icy composure. 'I confess I am a little surprised to see you again,' she remarked.
'You see a man crushed by sorrow and shame,' Sir John proceeded. 'Some devil must have possessed me when I spoke to you yesterday. I have not had one quiet moment since. You are literally the one hope of my life. Try, pray try to imagine what I felt, when I had every reason to fear that I had lost you -- and to what a man!'
'A very agreeable man, Sir John.'
'Torture me, if you like; I have deserved it. But don't tell me that you -- with your bright intelligence, your tact and delicacy, your superiority to the little weaknesses and vanities of ordinary women -- can feel a serious attachment to such a person as Cyril Corydon. No! Despise me as you may, Mabel; destroy all the hopes that I have centred in you; doom me to be a wretched man for the rest of my life -- there is one thing you can not do: I defy you to lower yourself in my estimation. You have been the one woman in the world to me since I first saw you; and the one woman you will remain to the day of my death!'
He caught her by the hand again: it trembled in his hand; her ready tongue had literally nothing to say. The power of nonsense, in every form which it can take, is one of the great moral forces to which humanity instinctively submits. When Cyril returned (without having discovered the book) Sir John's nonsense, admirably spoken, had answered Sir John's purpose. Placed between her two admirers, Mabel was not able to determine which she really preferred.
'There's no such book in the library,' Cyril announced. 'If he wanted to get rid of me, don't you think , Miss Mabel, he might have said so plainly?'
For the moment Sir John was thunderstruck. Was this the same confiding helpless young gentleman who had brought him to Oakapple Hall? He recovered himself directly.
'My dear boy, is there gout in your family?' he asked. 'I am at a loss to understand this extraordinary outbreak of temper -- unless there is a first fit coming on, at an unusually early age.'
Cyril passed this question over without notice.