第53章

You mustn't stick in the mud, you know.And after all, sir, the Duke of Omnium is a respectable man, though he is a Liberal.ADuke of Omnium can't want to send the country to the dogs.' The old man shook his head.He did not understand much about it, but he felt convinced that the Duke and his colleagues were sending the country to the dogs, whatever might be their wishes.'Ishan't think of politics for the next ten years, and so I don't trouble myself about the Duchess's parties, but I suppose Ishould go if I were asked.'

Sir Alured felt that he had not as yet begun even to approach the difficult subject.'I'm glad you don't like that man,' he said.

'I don't like him at all.Tell me, Sir Alured;--why is he always going to Manchester Square?'

'Ah;--that is it.'

'He has been there constantly;--has he not?'

'No;--no I don't think that.Mr Wharton doesn't love him a bit better than you do.My cousin thinks him a most objectionable young man.'

'But Emily?'

'Ah--That's where it is.'

'You don't mean to say she--cares about that man!'

'He has been encouraged by that aunt of hers, who, as far as Ican make out, is a very unfit sort of person to be much with such a girl as our dear Emily.I never saw her but once, and then Ididn't like her at all.'

'A vulgar, good-natured woman.But what can she have done? She can't have twisted Emily round her finger.'

'I don't suppose there is very much in it, but I thought it better to tell you.Girls take fancies into their heads,--just for a time.'

'He's a handsome fellow, too,' said Arthur Fletcher, musing in his sorrow.

'My cousin says he's a nasty Jew-looking man.'

'He's not that, Sir Alured.He's a handsome man with a fine voice;---dark, and not just like an Englishman; but still I can fancy--That's bad news for me, Sir Alured.'

'I think she'll forget him down here.'

'She never forgets anything.I shall ask her, straight away.

She knows my feeling about her, and I haven't a doubt that she'll tell me.She's too honest to be able to lie.Has he got any money?'

'My cousin seems to think he's rich.'

'I suppose he is.Oh, Lord! That's a blow.I wish I could have the pleasure of shooting him as a man might a few years ago.But what would be the good? The girl would only hate me the more after it.The best thing to do would be to shoot myself.'

'Don't talk like that, Arthur.'

'I shan't throw up the sponge as long as there's a chance left, Sir Alured.But it will go badly with me if I'm beat at last.Ishouldn't have thought it possible that I should have felt anything so much.' Then he pulled his hair, and thrust his hand into his waistcoat; and turned away, so that his old friend might not see the tear in his eye.

His old friend also was much moved.It was dreadful to him that the happiness of a Fletcher, and the comfort of the Whartons generally, should be marred by a man with such a name as Ferdinand Lopez.'She'll never marry him without her father's consent,' said Sir Alured.

'If she means it, of course he'll consent.'

'That I'm sure he won't.He doesn't like the man a bit better than you do.' Fletcher shook his head.'And he's as fond of you as though you were already his son.'

'What does it matter? If a girl sets her heart on marrying a man, of course, she will marry him.If he had no money it might be different.But if he's well off, of course he'll succeed.Well -; I suppose other men have borne the same sort of thing before and it hasn't killed them.'

'Let us hope, my boy.I think of her quite as much as of you.'

'Yes,--we can hope.I shan't give it up.As for her, I dare say she knows what will suit her best.I've nothing to say against the man,--excepting that I should like to cut him into four quarters.'

'But a foreigner!'

'Girls don't think about that,--not as you do and Mr Wharton.

And I think thy like dark, greasy men with slippery voices, who are up to dodges and full of secrets.Well, sir, I shall go to her at once and have it out.'

'You'll speak to my cousin?'

'Certainly I will.He has always been one of the best friends Iever had in my life.I know it hasn't been his fault.But what can a man do? Girls won't marry this or that because they are told.'

Fletcher did speak to Emily's father, and learned more from him than had been told him by Sir Alured.Indeed he learned the whole truth.Lopez had been twice with the father pressing his suit and had been twice repulsed, with as absolute denial as words could convey.Emily, however, had declared her own feeling openly, expressing her wish to marry the odious man, promising not to do so without her father's consent, but evidently feeling that that consent ought not to be withheld from her.All this Mr Wharton told very plainly, walking with Arthur a little before dinner along a shaded, lonely path, which for half a mile ran along the very marge of the Wye at the bottom of the park.And then he went on to speak other words which seemed to rob his young friend of all hope.The old man was walking slowly, with his hands clasped behind his back and with his eyes fixed on the path as he went;--and he spoke slowly, evidently weighing his words as he uttered them, bringing home to his hearer a conviction that the matter discussed was one of supreme importance to the speaker,--as to which he had thought much, so as to be able to express his settled resolutions.'I've told you all now, Arthur,--only this.I do not know how long I may be able to resist this man's claim if it be backed by Emily's entreaties.I am thinking very much about it.I do not know that I have really been able to think of anything else for the last two months.It is all the world to me,--what she and Everett do with themselves, and what she may do in this matter of marriage is of infinitely greater importance than can befall him.

If he makes a mistake, it may be put right.But with a woman's marrying--, vestigia nulla retrorsum.She has put off all her old bonds and taken new ones, which must be her bonds for life.