"Rich, handsome, lordly, influential, brilliant health, fine estates," Mrs. Mountstuart enumerated in petulant accents as there started across her mind some of Sir Willoughby's attributes for the attraction of the soul of woman. "I suppose you wish me to take you in earnest?"
"I appeal to you for help."
"What help?"
"Persuade him of the folly of pressing me to keep my word."
"I will believe you, my dear Middleton, on one condition: your talk of no heart is nonsense. A change like this, if one is to believe in the change, occurs through the heart, not because there is none. Don't you see that? But if you want me for a friend, you must not sham stupid. It's bad enough in itself: the imitation's horrid. You have to be honest with me, and answer me right out.
You came here on this visit intending to marry Willoughby Patterne."
"Yes."
"And gradually you suddenly discovered, since you came here, that you did not intend it, if you could find a means of avoiding it."
"Oh, madam, yes, it is true."
"Now comes the test. And, my lovely Middleton, your flaming cheeks won't suffice for me this time. The old serpent can blush like an innocent maid on occasion. You are to speak, and you are to tell me in six words why that was: and don't waste one on 'madam', or 'Oh! Mrs. Mountstuart" Why did you change?"
"I came--When I came I was in some doubt. Indeed I speak the truth. I found I could not give him the admiration he has, I dare say, a right to expect. I turned--it surprised me; it surprises me now. But so completely! So that to think of marrying him is . . ."
"Defer the simile," Mrs. Mountstuart interposed. "If you hit on a clever one, you will never get the better of it. Now, by just as much as you have outstripped my limitation of words to you, you show me you are dishonest."
"I could make a vow."
"You would forswear yourself."
"Will you help me?"
"If you are perfectly ingenuous, I may try."
"Dear lady, what more can I say?"
"It may be difficult. You can reply to a catechism."
"I shall have your help?"
"Well, yes; though I don't like stipulations between friends.
There is no man living to whom you could willingly give your hand?
That is my question. I cannot possibly take a step unless I know.
Reply briefly: there is or there is not." Clara sat back with bated breath, mentally taking the leap into the abyss, realizing it, and the cold prudence of abstention, and the delirium of the confession. Was there such a man? It resembled freedom to think there was: to avow it promised freedom.
"Oh, Mrs. Mountstuart!"
"Well?"
"You will help me?"
"Upon my word, I shall begin to doubt your desire for it."
"Willingly give my hand, madam?"
"For shame! And with wits like yours, can't you perceive where hesitation in answering such a question lands you?"
"Dearest lady, will you give me your hand? may I whisper?"
"You need not whisper; I won't look."
Clara's voice trembled on a tense chord.
"There is one ... compared with him I feel my insignificance. If I could aid him."
"What necessity have you to tell me more than that there is one?"
"Ah, madam, it is different: not as you imagine. You bid me be scrupulously truthful: I am: I wish you to know the different kind of feeling it is from what might be suspected from ... a confession. To give my hand, is beyond any thought I have ever encouraged. If you had asked me whether there is one whom I admire --yes, I do. I cannot help admiring a beautiful and brave self-denying nature. It is one whom you must pity, and to pity casts you beneath him: for you pity him because it is his nobleness that has been the enemy of his fortunes. He lives for others."
Her voice was musically thrilling in that low muted tone of the very heart, impossible to deride or disbelieve.
Mrs. Mountstuart set her head nodding on springs.
"Is he clever?"
"Very."
"He talks well?"
"Yes."
"Handsome?"
"He might be thought so."
"Witty?"
"I think he is."
"Gay, cheerful?"
"In his manner."
"Why, the man would be a mountebank if he adopted any other. And poor?"
"He is not wealthy."
Mrs. Mountstuart preserved a lengthened silence, but nipped Clara's fingers once or twice to reassure her without approving.
"Of course he's poor," she said at last; "directly the reverse of what you could have, it must be. Well, my fair Middleton, I can't say you have been dishonest. I'll help you as far as I'm able.
How, it is quite impossible to tell. We're in the mire. The best way seems to me to get this pitiable angel to cut some ridiculous capers and present you another view of him. I don't believe in his innocence. He knew you to be a plighted woman."
"He has not once by word or sign hinted a disloyalty."
"Then how do you know."
"I do not know."
"He is not the cause of your wish to break your engagement?"
"No."
"Then you have succeeded in just telling me nothing. What is?"
"Ah! madam!"