'And this young man has nothing that should revolt me. I think he has been wrong. But now that I have said it I will let all that pass from me. He will dine with us today.'
Silverbridge then went to see his sister. 'So you have settled your little business, Mary.'
'Oh Silverbridge, you will wish me joy?'
'Certainly. Why not?'
'Papa is so stern with me. Of course he has given way, and of course I am grateful. But he looks at me as though I had done something to be forgiven.'
'Take the good the gods provide you, Mary. That will all come right.'
'But I have not done anything wrong, have I?'
'That is a matter of opinion. How can I answer you when I don't quite know whether I have done anything wrong or not myself. I am going to marry the girl that I have chosen. That's enough for me.'
'But you did change.'
'We need not say anything about that.'
'But I have never changed. Papa just told me that he would consent, and that I might write to him. So I did write, and he came. But papa looks at me as though I had broken his heart.'
'I tell you what it is, Mary. You expect too much from him. He has not had his own way with either of us, and of course he feels it.'
As Tregear had said there was quite a family party in Carlton Terrace, though as yet the family was not bound together by family ties. All the Boncassens were there, the father, the mother, and the promised bride. Mr Boncassen bore himself with more ease than anyone in the company, having at his command a gift of manliness which enabled him to regard this marriage exactly as he would have done any other. America was not so far distant but what he would be able to see his girl occasionally. He liked the young man and he believed in the comfort of wealth. Therefore he was satisfied.
But when the marriage was spoken of, or written of, as an 'alliance', then he would say a hard word or two about dukes and lords in general. On such an occasion as this he was happy and at his ease.
So much could not be said for his wife, with whom the Duke attempted to place himself on terms of family equality. But in doing this he failed to hide the attempt even from her, and she broke down under it. Had he simply walked into the room with her as he would have done on any other occasion, and then remarked that the frost was keen or the thaw disagreeable, it would have been better for her. But when he told her that he hoped that she would often make herself at home in that house, and looked, as he said it, as though he were asking her to take a place among the goddesses of Olympus, she was troubled as to her answer. 'Oh, my Lord Duke,' she said, 'when I think of Isabel living here and being called by such a name, it almost upsets me.'
Isabel had all her father's courage, but she was more sensitive; and though she would have borne her honours well, was oppressed by the feeling that the weight was too much for her mother. She could not keep her ear from listening to her mother's words, or her eye from watching her mother's motions. She was prepared to carry her mother everywhere. 'As other girls have to be taken with their belongings, so must I, if I be taken at all.' This she had said plainly enough. There should be no division between her and her mother. But still knowing that her mother was not quite at ease, she was hardly at ease herself.
Silverbridge came in at the last moment, and of course occupied a chair next to Isabel. As the House was sitting, it was natural that he should come in a flurry. 'I left Phineas,' he said, 'pounding away in his old style at Sir Timothy. By-the-bye, Isabel, you must come down some day and hear Sir Timothy badgered.
I must be back again about ten. Well, Gerald, how are they all at Lazarus?' He made an effort to be free and easy, but even he soon found that it was an effort.
Gerald had come up from Oxford for the occasion that he might make acquaintance with the Boncassens. He had taken Isabel in to dinner, but had been turned out of his place when his brother came in. He had been a little confused by the first impression made upon him by Mrs Boncassen, and had involuntarily watched his father. 'Silver is going to have an odd sort of mother-in-law,' he said afterwards to Mary, who remarked in reply that this would not signify, as the mother-in-law would be in New York.
Tregear's part was very difficult to play. He could not but feel that though he had succeeded, still he was looked upon askance.
Silverbridge had told him that by degrees the Duke would be won round, but that it was not to be expected that he should swallow at once all his regrets. The truth of this could not but be accepted. The immediate inconvenience, however, was not the less felt. Each and everyone there knew the position of each and everyone;--but Tregear felt it difficult to act up to his. He could not play the well-pleased lover openly, as did Silverbridge.
Mary herself was disposed to be very silent. The heart-breaking tedium of her dull life had been removed. Her determination had been rewarded. All that she had wanted had been granted to her, and she was happy. But she was not prepared to show off her happiness before others. And she was aware that she was thought to have done evil by introducing her lover into her august family.
