Sir Thomas was gone, Lady Tringle discussed the matter with Lucy. "Of course, my dear," she said, "if we could make dear Ayala happy – "
"I don't think she will come, Aunt Emmeline."
"Not come!" This was not said at all in a voice of anger, but simply as eliciting some further expression of opinion.
"She's afraid of – Tom." Lucy had never hitherto expressed a positive opinion on that matter at Queen's Gate. When Augusta had spoken of Ayala as having run after Tom, Lucy had been indignant, and had declared that the running had been all on the other side. In a side way she had hinted that Ayala, at any rate at present, was far from favourable to Tom's suit. But she had never yet spoken out her mind at Queen's Gate as Ayala had spoken it to her.
"Afraid of him?" said Aunt Emmeline.
"I mean that she is not a bit in love with him, and when a girl is like that I suppose she is – is afraid of a man, if everybody else wants her to marry him."
"Why should everybody want her to marry Tom?" asked Lady Tringle, indignantly. "I am sure I don't want her."
"I suppose it is Uncle Tom, and Aunt Dosett, and Uncle Reginald," said poor Lucy, finding that she had made a mistake.
"I don't see why anybody should want her to marry Tom. Tom is carried away by her baby face, and makes a fool of himself. As to everybody wanting her, I hope she does not flatter herself that there is anything of the kind."
"I only meant that I think she would rather not be brought here, where she would have to see him daily."
After this the loan of the carriage was at last made, and Lucy was allowed to visit her sister at the Crescent. "Has he been there?" was almost the first question that Ayala asked.
"What he do you mean?"
"Isadore Hamel."
"No; I have not seen him since I met him in the Park. But I do not want to talk about Mr. Hamel, Ayala. Mr. Hamel is nothing."
"Oh, Lucy."
"He is nothing. Had he been anything, he has gone, and there would be an end to it. But he is nothing."
"If a man is true he may go, but he will come back." Ayala had her ideas about the angel of light very clearly impressed upon her mind in regard to the conduct of the man, though they were terribly vague as to his personal appearance, his condition of life, his appropriateness for marriage, and many other details of his circumstances. It had also often occurred to her that this angel of light, when he should come, might not be in love with herself, – and that she might have to die simply because she had seen him and loved him in vain. But he would be a man sure to come back if there were fitting reasons that he should do so. Isadore Hamel was not quite an angel of light, but he was nearly angelic, – at any rate very good, and surely would come back.
"Never mind about Mr. Hamel, Ayala. It is not nice to talk about a man who has never spoken a word."
"Never spoken a word! Oh, Lucy!"
"Mr. Hamel has never spoken a word, and I will not talk about him. There! All my heart is open to you, Ayala. You know that. But I will not talk about Mr. Hamel. Aunt Emmeline wants you to come to Queen's Gate."
"I will not."
"Or rather it is Sir Thomas who wants you to come. I do like Uncle Tom. I do, indeed."
"So do I."
"You ought to come when he asks you."
"Why ought I? That lout would be there, – of course."
"I don't know about his being a lout, Ayala."
"He comes here, and I have to be perfectly brutal to him. You can't guess the sort of things I say to him, and he doesn't mind it a bit. He thinks that he has to go on long enough, and that I must give way at last. If I were to go to Queen's Gate it would be just as much as to say that I had given way."
"Why not?"
"Lucy!"
"Why not? He is not bad. He is honest, and true, and kind-hearted. I know you can't be happy here."
"No."
"Aunt Dosett, with all her affairs, must be trouble to you. I could not bear them patiently. How can you?"
"Because they are better than Tom Tringle. I read somewhere about there being seven houses of the Devil, each one being lower and worse than the other. Tom would be the lowest, – the lowest, – the lowest."
"Ayala, my darling."
"Do not tell me that I ought to marry Tom," said Ayala, almost standing off in anger from the proferred kiss. "Do you think that I could love him?"
"I think you could if you tried, because he is loveable. It is so much to be good, and then he loves you truly. After all, it is something to have everything nice around you. You have not been made to be poor and uncomfortable. I fear that it must be bad with you here."
"It is bad."
"I wish I could have stayed, Ayala. I am more tranquil than you, and could have borne it better."
"It is bad. It is one of the houses, – but not the lowest. I can eat my heart out here, peaceably, and die with a great needle in my hand and a towel in my lap. But if I were to marry him I should kill myself the first hour after I had gone away with him. Things! What would things be with such a monster as that leaning over one? Would you marry him?" In answer to this, Lucy made no immediate reply. "Why don't you say? You want me to marry him. Would you?"
"No."
"Then why should I?"
"I could not try to love him."
"Try! How can a girl try to love any man? It should come because she can't help it, let her try ever so. Trying to love Tom Tringle! Why can't you try?"
"He doesn't want me."
"But if he did? I don't suppose it would make the least difference to him which it was. Would you try if he asked?"
"No."
"Then why should I? Am I so much a poorer creature than you?"
"You are a finer creature. You know that I think so."
"I don't want to be finer. I want to be the same."
"You are free to do as you please. I am not – quite."
"That means Isadore Hamel."
"I try to tell you all the truth, Ayala; but pray do not talk about him even to me. As for you, you are free; and if you could – "
"I can't. I don't know that I am free, as you call it." Then Lucy started, as though about to ask the question which would naturally follow. "You needn't look like that, Lucy. There isn't any one to be named."
"A man not to be named?"
"There isn't a man at all. There isn't anybody. But I may have my own ideas if I please. If I had an Isadore Hamel of my own I could compare Tom or Mr. Traffick, or any other lout to him, and could say how infinitely higher in the order of things was my Isadore than any of them. Though I haven't an Isadore can't I have an image? And can't I make my image brighter, even higher, than Isadore? You won't believe that, of course, and I don't want you to believe it yourself. But you should believe it for me. My image can make Tom Tringle just as horrible to me as Isadore Hamel can make him to you." Thus it was that Ayala endeavoured to explain to her sister something of the castle which she had built in the air, and of the angel of light who inhabited the castle.
Then it was decided between them that Lucy should explain to Aunt Emmeline that Ayala could not make a prolonged stay at Queen's Gate. "But how shall I say it?" asked Lucy.
"Tell her the truth, openly. 'Tom wants to marry Ayala, and Ayala won't have him. Therefore, of course, she can't come, because it would look as though she were going to change her mind, – which she isn't.' Aunt Emmeline will understand that, and will not be a bit sorry. She doesn't want to have me for a daughter-in-law. She had quite enough of me at Rome."
All this time the carriage was waiting, and Lucy was obliged to return before half of all that