第48章

'He is not an elected legislator. It makes all the difference. I quite agree with what the Duke says. Lord Popplecourt can't help himself. Whether he's an idle young scamp or not, he must be a legislator. But when a man goes into if for himself, as you have done, he should make up his mind to be useful.'

'I shall vote with my party of course.'

'More than that, much more than that. if you didn't care for politics you couldn't have taken that line of your own.' When she said this she knew that he had been talked into what he had done by Tregear,--by Tregear, who had ambition, and intelligence, and capacity for forming an opinion of his own. 'If you do not do it for your own sake, you will for the sake of those who,--who,--who are your friends,' she said at last, not feeling quite able to tell him that he must do it for the sake of those that loved him.

'There are not very many I suppose who care about it.'

'Your father.'

'Oh yes,--my father.'

'And Tregear.'

'Tregear has got his own fish to fry.'

'Are there none others? Do you think we care nothing about it here?'

'Miss Cassewary?'

'Well;--Miss Cassewary! A man might have a worse friend than Miss Cassewary;--and my father.'

'I don't suppose Lord Grex cares a straw about me.'

'Indeed he does,--a great many straws. And so do I. Do you think I don't care a straw about you?'

'I don't know why you should.'

'Because it is in my nature to be earnest. A girl comes out into the world so young that she becomes serious, and steady as it were, so much sooner than a man does.'

'I always think that nobody is so full of chaff as you are, Lady Mab.'

'I am not chaffing now in recommending you go to work in the world like a man.' As she said this they were sitting on the same sofa, but with some space between them. When Miss Cassewary had left the room Lord Silverbridge was standing, but after a little he had fallen into the seat, at the extreme corner, and had gradually come a little nearer to her. Now in her energy she put our her hand, meaning perhaps to touch lightly the sleeve of his coat, meaning perhaps not quite to touch him at all. But as she did so he put out his hand and took hold of hers.'

She drew it away, not seeming to allow it to remain in his grasp for a moment, but she did so, not angrily, or hurriedly, or with any flurry. She did it as though it were natural that he should take her hand and as natural that she should recover it. 'Indeed I have hardly more than ten minutes left before dressing,' she said, rising from her seat.

'If you will say that you care about it, you yourself, I will do my best.' As he made this declaration blushes covered his cheeks and forehead.

'I do care about it,--very much; I myself,' said Lady Mabel, not blushing at all. Then there was a knock at the door, and Lady Mabel's maid, putting her head in, declared that my Lord had come in and had already been some time in the dressing-room. 'Good-bye, Lord Silverbridge,' she said quite gaily, and rather more aloud than would have been necessary, had she not intended that the maid should also hear her.

'Poor boy!' she said to herself as she was dressing. 'Poor boy!'

Then, when the evening was over she spoke to herself again about hit. 'Dear sweet boy!' And then she sat and thought. How was it that she was so old a woman, while he was so little more than a child? How fair he was, how far removed from conceit, how capable of being made into man--in the process of time! What might not be expected from him if he could be kept in good hands for the next ten years! But in whose hands? What would she be in ten years, she who already seemed to know the town and all its belongings so well? And yet she was as young in years as he. He, as she knew, had passed his twenty-second birthday,--and so had she. That was all. It might be good for her that she should marry him. She was ambitious. And such a marriage would satisfy her ambition. Through her father's fault, and her brother's she was likely to be poor.

This man would certainly be rich. Many of those who were buzzing around her from day to day, were distasteful to her. From among them she knew that she could not take a husband, let their rank and wealth be what it might. She was too fastidious, too proud, too prone to think that things could be with her as she liked them! This last was in all things pleasant to her. Though he was but a boy, thee was a certain boyish manliness about him. The very way in which he had grasped at her hand and had then blushed ruby-red at his own daring, had gone far with her. How gracious he was to look at! Dear sweet boy! Love him? No;--she did not know that she loved him. That dream was over. She was sure however that she liked him.

But could she love him? That a woman should not marry a man without loving him, she partly knew. But she thought she knew also that there must be exceptions. She would do her very best to love him. That other man should be banished from her very thoughts. She would be such a wife to him that he should never know that he lacked anything. Poor boy! Sweet dear boy! He, as he went away to his dinner, had his thoughts also about her. Of all the girls he knew she was the jolliest,--and of all his friends she was the pleasantest. As she was anxious that he should go to work in the House of Commons he would go to work there. As for loving her!

Well;--of course he must marry some day, and why not Lady Mab as well as anyone else.