'Don't I? Then I hope I never shall. I thought I did. I thought they were the feelings of a good, true-hearted friend; feelings that I could sometimes look back upon with pleasure as being honest when so much that one meets is false. I have become very fond of you, Mr Gresham, and I should be sorry to think that I did not understand your feelings.'
This was almost worse and worse. Young ladies like Miss Dunstable--for she was still to be numbered in the category of young ladies--do not usually tell young gentlemen that they are very fond of them. To boys and girls they may make such a declaration. Now Frank Gresham regarded himself as one who had already fought his battles, and fought them not without glory; he could not therefore endure to be thus openly told by Miss Dunstable that she was very fond of him.
'Fond of me, Miss Dunstable! I wish you were.'
'So I am--very.'
'You little know how fond I am of you, Miss Dunstable,' and he put out his hand to take hold of hers. She then lifted up her own, and slapped him lightly on the knuckles.
'And what can you have to say to say to Miss Dunstable that can make it necessary that you should pinch her hand? I tell you fairly, Mr Gresham, if you make a fool of yourself, I shall come to a conclusion that you are all fools, and that it is hopeless to look out for any one worth caring for.'
Such advice as this, so kindly given, so wisely meant, so clearly intelligible he should have taken and understood, young as he was. but even yet he did not do so.
'A fool of myself! Yes; I suppose I must be a fool if I have so much regard for Miss Dunstable as to make it painful for me to know that I am to see her no more: a fool: yes, of course I am a fool--a man is always a fool when he loves.'
Miss Dunstable could not pretend to doubt his meaning any longer; and was determined to stop him, let it cost what it would. She now put out her hand, not over white, and, as Frank soon perceived, gifted with a very fair allowance of strength.
'Now, Mr Gresham,' said she, 'before you go any further you shall listen to me. Will you listen to me for a moment without interrupting me?'
Frank was of course obliged to promise that he would do so.
'You are going--or rather you were going, for I shall stop you--to make a profession of love.'
'A profession!' said Frank making a slight unsuccessful effort to get his hand free.
'Yes; a profession--a false profession, Mr Gresham,--a false profession--a false profession. Look into your heart--into your heart of hearts. I know you at any rate have a heart; look into it closely. Mr Gresham, you know you do not love me; not as a man should love the woman he swears to love.'
Frank was taken aback. So appealed to he found that he could not any longer say that he did love her. He could only look into her face with all his eyes, and sit there listening to her.
'How is it possible that you should love me? I am Heaven knows how many years your senior. I am neither young nor beautiful, nor have I been brought up as she should be whom you in time will really love and make your wife. I have nothing that should make you love me; but--but I am rich.'
'It is not that,' said Frank, stoutly, feeling himself imperatively called upon to utter something in his own defence.
'Ah, Mr Gresham, I fear it is that. For what other reason can you have laid your plans to talk in this way to such a woman as I am?'
'I have laid no plans,' said Frank, now getting his hand to himself.
'At any rate, you wrong me there, Miss Dunstable.'
'I like you so well--nay, love you, if a woman may talk of love in the way of friendship--that if money, money alone would make you happy, you should have it heaped on you. If you want it, Mr Gresham, you shall have it.'
'I have never thought of your money,' said Frank, surlily.
'But it grieves me,' continued she, 'it does grieve me, to think that you, you, you--so young and gay, so bright--that you should have looked for it in this way. From others I have taken it just as the wind that whistles;' and now two big slow tears escaped from her eyes, and would have rolled down her rosy cheeks were it not that she brushed them off with the back of her hand.
'You have utterly mistaken me, Miss Dunstable,' said Frank.
'If I have, I will humbly beg your pardon,' said she, 'but--but--but--'
Frank had nothing further to say in his own defence. He had not wanted Miss Dunstable's money--that was true; but he could not deny that he had been about to talk that absolute nonsense of which she spoke with so much scorn.
'You would almost make me think that there are none honest in this fashionable world of yours. I well know why Lady de Courcy has had me here: how could I help knowing it? She has been so foolish in her plans that ten times a day she has told me her own secret. But I have said to myself twenty times, that if she were crafty, you were honest.'
'And am I dishonest?'
'I have laughed in my sleeve to see how she played her game, and to hear others around playing theirs; all of them thinking that they could get the money of the poor fool who had come at their beck and call; but I was able to laugh at them as long as I thought that I had one true friend to laugh with me. But one cannot laugh with all the world against one.'
'I am not against you, Miss Dunstable.'
