'Do you'--he was going to say--'love any one else?' But it seemed
as if this question would be an insult to the pure serenity of
those eyes. 'Forgive me I have been too abrupt. I am punished.
Only let me hope. Give me the poor comfort of telling me you have
never seen any one whom you could----' Again a pause. He could
not end his sentence. Margaret reproached herself acutely as the
cause of his distress.
'Ah! if you had but never got this fancy into your head! It was
such a pleasure to think of you as a friend.' 'But I may hope, may I not, Margaret, that some time you will
think of me as a lover? Not yet, I see--there is no hurry--but
some time----' She was silent for a minute or two, trying to
discover the truth as it was in her own heart, before replying;
then she said: 'I have never thought of--you, but as a friend. I like to think
of you so; but I am sure I could never think of you as anything
else. Pray, let us both forget that all this' ('disagreeable,'
she was going to say, but stopped short) 'conversation has taken
place.' He paused before he replied. Then, in his habitual coldness of
tone, he answered: 'Of course, as your feelings are so decided, and as this
conversation has been so evidently unpleasant to you, it had
better not be remembered. That is all very fine in theory, that
plan of forgetting whatever is painful, but it will be somewhat
difficult for me, at least, to carry it into execution.' 'You are vexed,' said she, sadly; 'yet how can I help it?' She looked so truly grieved as she said this, that he struggled
for a moment with his real disappointment, and then answered more
cheerfully, but still with a little hardness in his tone: 'You should make allowances for the mortification, not only of a
lover, Margaret, but of a man not given to romance in
general--prudent, worldly, as some people call me--who has been
carried out of his usual habits by the force of a passion--well,
we will say no more of that; but in the one outlet which he has
formed for the deeper and better feelings of his nature, he meets
with rejection and repulse. I shall have to console myself with
scorning my own folly. A struggling barrister to think of
matrimony!' Margaret could not answer this. The whole tone of it annoyed her.
It seemed to touch on and call out all the points of difference
which had often repelled her in him; while yet he was the
pleasantest man, the most sympathising friend, the person of all
others who understood her best in Harley Street. She felt a tinge
of contempt mingle itself with her pain at having refused him.
Her beautiful lip curled in a slight disdain. It was well that,
having made the round of the garden, they came suddenly upon Mr.
Hale, whose whereabouts had been quite forgotten by them. He had
not yet finished the pear, which he had delicately peeled in one
long strip of silver-paper thinness, and which he was enjoying in
a deliberate manner. It was like the story of the eastern king,
who dipped his head into a basin of water, at the magician's
command, and ere he instantly took it out went through the
experience of a lifetime. I Margaret felt stunned, and unable to
recover her self-possession enough to join in the trivial
conversation that ensued between her father and Mr. Lennox. She
was grave, and little disposed to speak; full of wonder when Mr.
Lennox would go, and allow her to relax into thought on the
events of the last quarter of an hour. He was almost as anxious
to take his departure as she was for him to leave; but a few
minutes light and careless talking, carried on at whatever
effort, was a sacrifice which he owed to his mortified vanity, or
his self-respect. He glanced from time to time at her sad and
pensive face.