第43章

Lord Warburton seemed quite ready to walk, to sit or to do anything that Isabel should propose, and he gave her this assurance with his usual air of being particularly pleased to exercise a social virtue.But he was, nevertheless, not in command of his emotions, and as he strolled beside her for a moment, in silence, looking at her without letting her know it, there was something embarrassed in his glance and his misdirected laughter.Yes, assuredly- as we have touched on the point, we may return to it for a moment again- the English are the most romantic people in the world and Lord Warburton was about to give an example of it.He was about to take a step which would astonish all his friends and displease a great many of them, and which had superficially nothing to recommend it.The young lady who trod the turf beside him had come from a queer country across the sea which he knew a good deal about;her antecedents, her associations were very vague to his mind except in so far as they were generic, and in this sense they showed as distinct and unimportant.Miss Archer had neither a fortune nor the sort of beauty that justifies a man to the multitude, and he calculated that he had spent about twenty-six hours in her company.He had summed up all this- the perversity of the impulse, which had declined to avail itself of the most liberal opportunities to subside, and the judgement of mankind, as exemplified particularly in the more quickly-judging half of it: he had looked these things well in the face and then had dismissed them from his thoughts.He cared no more for them than for the rosebud in his buttonhole.It is the good fortune of a man who for the greater part of a lifetime has abstained without effort from making himself disagreeable to his friends, that when the need comes for such a course it is not discredited by irritating associations.

"I hope you had a pleasant ride," said Isabel, who observed her companion's hesitancy.

"It would have been pleasant if for nothing else than that it brought me here.""Are you so fond of Gardencourt?" the girl asked, more and more sure that he meant to make some appeal to her; wishing not to challenge him if he hesitated, and yet to keep all the quietness of her reason if he proceeded.It suddenly came upon her that her situation was one which a few weeks ago she would have deemed deeply romantic: the park of an old English country-house, with the foreground embellished by a "great" (as she supposed) nobleman in the act of making love to a young lady who, on careful inspection, should be found to present remarkable analogies with herself.But if she was now the heroine of the situation she succeeded scarcely the less in looking at it from the outside.

"I care nothing for Gardencourt," said her companion."I care only for you.

"You've known me too short a time to have a right to say that, and Ican't believe you're serious."

These words of Isabel's were not perfectly sincere, for she had no doubt whatever that he himself was.They were simply a tribute to the fact, of which she was perfectly aware, that those he had just uttered would have excited surprise on the part of a vulgar world.

And, moreover, if anything beside the sense she had already acquired that Lord Warburton was not a loose thinker had been needed to convince her, the tone in which he replied would quite have served the purpose.

"One's right in such a matter is not measured by the time, Miss Archer; it's measured by the feeling itself.If I were to wait three months it would make no difference; I shall not be more sure of what Imean than I am to-day.Of course I've seen you very little, but my impression dates from the very first hour we met.I lost no time, Ifell in love with you then.It was at first sight, as the novels say; I know now that's not a fancy-phrase, and I shall think better of novels for evermore.Those two days I spent here settled it; I don't know whether you suspected I was doing so, but I paid- mentally speaking I mean- the greatest possible attention to you.Nothing you said, nothing you did, was lost upon me.When you came to Lockleigh the other day- or rather when you went away- I was perfectly sure.

Nevertheless I made up my mind to think it over and to question myself narrowly.I've done so; all these days I've done nothing else.I don't make mistakes about such things; I'm a very judicious animal.Idon't go off easily, but when I'm touched, it's for life.It's for life, Miss Archer, it's for life," Lord Warburton repeated in the kindest, tenderest, pleasantest voice Isabel had ever heard, and looking at her with eyes charged with the light of a passion that had sifted itself clear of the baser parts of emotion- the heat, the violence, the unreason- and that burned as steadily as a lamp in a windless place.

By tacit consent, as he talked, they had walked more and more slowly, and at last they stopped and he took her hand."Ah, Lord Warburton, how little you know me!" Isabel said very gently.Gently too she drew her hand away.

"Don't taunt me with that, that I don't know you better makes me unhappy enough already; it's all my loss.But that's what I want, and it seems to me I'm taking the best way.If you'll be my wife, then I shall know you, and when I tell you all the good I think of you you'll not be able to say it's from ignorance.""If you know me little I know you even less," said Isabel.

"You mean that, unlike yourself, I may not improve on acquaintance? Ah, of course that's very possible.But think, to speak to you as I do, how determined I must be to try and give satisfaction! You do like me rather, don't you?""I like you very much, Lord Warburton," she answered; and at this moment she liked him immensely.

"I thank you for saying that; it shows you don't regard me as a stranger.I really believe I've filled all the other relations of life very creditably, and I don't see why I shouldn't fill this one- in which I offer myself to you- seeing that I care so much more about it.