which he had won,—as of a treasure which should, and perhaps would, compensate him for his misery. But there was the misery very plain. He must give up his clubs, and his fashion, and all that he had hitherto gained, and be content to live a plain, humdrum, domestic life, with eight hundred a year, and a small house, full of babies. It was not the kind of Elysium for which he had tutored himself. Lily was very nice, very nice indeed. She was, as he said to himself, “by odds, the nicest girl that he had ever seen.” Whatever might now turn up, her happiness should be his first care. But as for his own,—he began to fear that the compensation would hardly be perfect. “It is my own doing,” he said to himself, intending to be rather noble in the purport of his soliloquy, “I have trained myself for other things,—very foolishly. Of course I must suffer,—suffer damnably. But she shall never know it. Dear, sweet, innocent, pretty little thing!” And then he went on about the squire, as to whom he felt himself entitled to be indignant by his own disinterested and manly line of conduct towards the niece. “But I will let him know what I think about it,” he said. “It’s all very well for Dale to say that I have been treated fairly. It isn’t fair for a man to put forward his niece under false pretences. Of course I thought that he intended to provide for her.” And then, having made up his mind in a very manly way that he would not desert Lily altogether after having promised to marry her, he endeavoured to find consolation in the reflection that he might, at any rate, allow himself two years’ more run as a bachelor in London. Girls who have to get themselves married without fortunes always know that they will have to wait. Indeed, Lily had already told him, that as far as she was concerned, she was in no hurry. He need not, therefore, at once withdraw his name from Sebright’s. Thus he endeavoured to console himself, still, however, resolving that he would have a little serious conversation with the squire that very evening as to Lily’s fortune.
And what was the state of Lily’s mind at the same moment, while she, also, was performing some slight toilet changes preparatory to their simple dinner at the Small House?
“I didn’t behave well to him,” she said to herself; “I never do. I forget how much he is giving up for me; and then, when anything annoys him, I make it worse instead of comforting him.” And upon that she made accusation against herself that she did not love him half enough,—that she did not let him see how thoroughly and perfectly she loved him. She had an idea of her own, that as a girl should never show any preference for a man till circumstances should have fully entitled him to such manifestation, so also should she make no drawback on her love, but pour it forth for his benefit with all her strength, when such circumstances had come to exist. But she was ever feeling that she was not acting up to her theory, now that the time for such practice had come. She would unwittingly assume little reserves, and make small pretences of indifference in spite of her own judgment. She had done so on this afternoon, and had left him without giving him her hand to press, without looking up into his face with an assurance of love, and therefore she was angry with herself. “I know I shall teach him to hate me,” she said out loud to Bell.
“That would be very sad,” said Bell; “but I don’t see it.”
“If you were engaged to a man you would be much better to him. You would not say so much, but what you did say would be all affection. I am always making horrid little speeches, for which I should like to cut out my tongue afterwards.”
“Whatever sort of speeches they are, I think that he likes them.”
“Does he? I’m not all so sure of that, Bell. Of course I don’t expect that he is to scold me,—not yet, that is. But I know by his eye when he is pleased and when he is displeased.”
And then they went down to their dinner.
Up at the Great House the three gentlemen met together in apparent good humour. Bernard Dale was a man of an equal temperament, who rarely allowed any feeling, or even any annoyance, to interfere with his usual manner,—a man who could always come to table with a smile, and meet either his friend or his enemy with a properly civil greeting. Not that he was especially a false man. There was nothing of deceit in his placidity of demeanour. It arose from true equanimity; but it was the equanimity of a cold disposition rather than of one well ordered by discipline. The squire was aware that he had been unreasonably petulant before dinner, and having taken himself to task in his own way, now entered the dining-room with the courteous greeting of a host. “I find that your bag was not so bad after all,” he said, “and I hope that your appetite is at least as good as your bag.”
Crosbie smiled, and made himself pleasant, and said a few flattering words. A man who intends to take some very decided step in an hour or two generally contrives to bear himself in the meantime as though the trifles of the world were quite sufficient for him. So he praised the squire’s game; said a goodnatured word as to Dingles, and bantered himself as to his own want of skill. Then all went merry, not quite as a marriage bell; but still merry enough for a party of three gentlemen.
But Crosbie’s resolution was fixed; and as soon, therefore, as the old butler was permanently gone, and the wine steadily in transit upon the table, he began his task, not without some apparent abruptness. Having fully considered the matter, he had determined that he would not wait for Bernard Dale’s absence. He thought it possible that he might be able to fight his battle better in Bernard’s presence than he should do behind his back.
“Squire,” he began. They all called him squire when they were on good terms together, and Crosbie thought it well to begin as though there was nothing amiss between them. “Squire, of course I am thinking a good deal at the present moment as to my intended marriage.”
“That’s natural enough,” said the squire.
“Yes, by George! sir, a man doesn’t make a change like that without finding that he has got something to think of.”
“I suppose not,” said the squire. “I never was in the way of getting married myself, but I can easily understand that.”
“I’ve been the luckiest fellow in the world in finding such a girl as your niece—” Whereupon the squire bowed, intending to make a little courteous declaration that the luck in the matter was on the side of the Dales. “I know that,” continued Crosbie. “She is exactly everything that a girl ought to be.”
“She is a good girl,” said Bernard.
“Yes; I think she is,” said the squire.
“But it seems to me,” said Crosbie, finding that it was necessary to dash at once headlong into the water, “that something ought to be said as to my means of supporting her properly.”
Then he paused for a moment, expecting that the squire would speak. But the squire sat perfectly still, looking intently at the empty fireplace and saying nothing. “Of supporting her,” continued Crosbie, “with all those comforts to which she has been accustomed.”
“She has never been used to expense,” said the squire. “Her mother, as you doubtless know, is not a rich woman.”
“But living here, Lily has had great advantages,—a horse to ride, and all that sort of thing.”
“I don’t suppose she expects a horse in the park,” said the squire, with a very perceptible touch of sarcasm in his voice.
“I hope not,” said Crosbie.
“I believe she has had the use of one of the ponies here sometimes, but I hope that has not made her extravagant in her ideas. I did not think that there was anything of that nonsense about either of them.”
“Nor is there,—as far as I know.”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Bernard.
“But the long and the short of it is this, sir!” and Crosbie, as he spoke, endeavoured to maintain his ordinary voice and usual coolness, but his heightened colour betrayed that he was nervous. “Am I to expect any accession of income with my wife?”
“I have not spoken to my sister-in-law on the subject,” said the squire; “but I should fear that she cannot do much.”
“As