CHAPTER V.

A quarter of an hour later Mr. Armstrong re-enters the room, and stands

with still impenetrable face before his guest.

"You--you have given me good measure," she says, rather hysterically.

"I have been trying to think, to understand it all thoroughly."

"Yes?"

"It is very kind, very thoughtful of you to make such a suggestion,

to--to offer to give me back what I--I value so dearly and believed

forever out of my reach; and, you--you understand, I would not have

spoken as freely as I did--"

"I understand perfectly. Do you accept or reject my offer then?"

"Oh, dear, dear, how point-blank you are!" she answers flutteringly.

"I--I do neither yet. Of course it is a great bribe, a great

temptation; but--but--"

"But what? Do not be afraid of me, Miss Lefroy. Please tell me

unreservedly what is on your mind. I am not a very sensitive plant, I

assure you."

"I will then. I dare say it would be better always to come to the

point as you do," she says, with a weak laugh. "But women never can,

you know; they must flutter round corners and by-ways a little at

first--'tis their nature to, Bob says. What I mean is that, dearly

as I love the old place for itself, it--it was more the surroundings,

it was being all together--we five--that--that made it what it was to

me. I know, I feel sure it would--would never be the same, never be

the old home to me, if I were living in it all alone and they outside

struggling in the world. I'm afraid," continues Addie, her fingers

nervously crimping the ragged flounces of her cotton dress, "that I

don't express myself very--very clearly; but I think you--you will

understand what I mean."

"Yes I understand what you mean, Miss Lefroy," he returns slowly,

meditatively, and then relapses into silence, which she does not break.

"Perfectly, young lady, perfectly!" he echoes to himself grimly enough.

"You mean me to understand that, if I marry you, I must also marry your

entire family circle--the tall, dark-eyed sister, the small sickly

one, the two cubs of brothers, the hysterically-disposed maiden aunt,

who would do duly as mother-in-law--the whole interesting group--just

a round half dozen. Hum! Rather a formidable number, Tom, my man,

wherewith to plunge into the doubtful sea of matrimony--as a maiden

venture too--you who have hitherto steered so clear of petticoats,

who never until now felt any attractions in their refining rustle! To

start with a family of six--six useless dependent pauper aristocrats,

who would probably consider you the favored party in being allowed the

honor of feeding, housing, clothing, educating them--By Jove, 'twould

be a position to make a stouter-hearted man than I am quail! I'd better

hedge a bit while there is yet time, pause on the brink of--what? Ten

to one, on the brink of a gulf of irreparable folly!"

He looks stealthily at the origin of his troublous irresolution, at

the shabby gray-eyed girl whom half an hour before he had no more

idea of marrying than he had of marrying his cook, whose presence

he has barely noticed during the few times he has found himself in

her company. "Is the game worth the candle?" he asks himself for the

twentieth time in impatient iteration. She is no beauty, this Addie

Lefroy. Her features are not the least bit regular; her skin, though

pure and fresh, is thickly freckled; her figure, willowy and rounded

enough, is not the type of figure Madame Armine of Kelvick would love

to adorn. Then she has no accomplishments, scarcely any education, no

money, no connection, save her nightmare of a family; and--most damning

fact of all--she does not like him personally. He, Tom Armstrong of

Kelvick, is repugnant to her--that he can see clearly enough. Therefore

is he not making an ass of himself--an unmitigated ass? A man of his

years and experience to introduce on the impulse of a moment an element

into his hitherto self-sufficing contented life that may bring with

it infinite discord, life-long annoyance! Is there sense or meaning

in his vague intangible longing to possess that callous undisciplined

child who almost shrinks from his touch, just because she has sat in

his drawing-room as if she were at home there, and has handed him a cup

of tea gracefully? What is her fascination, her attraction? Not her

beauty, certainly, for she is not half as good-looking as other girls

he knows--as Miss Ethel Challice, for instance--no, certainly not!

He turns aside and unsuccessfully tries to recall to his mind's eye the

vision of that young lady as he sat by her side on the night before

in her father's elegant drawing-room. How handsome, how graceful she

looked in her shimmering silk, roses clustering in her golden hair! How

sweetly and kindly she smiled on him when he went to help her at the

tea-table! Why did he not fall in love with her, or have the sense to

invite her to come up to Nutsgrove and pour him out a cup of tea from

that magical exasperating pot? It might have done the business for him

just as well; and how infinitely more suitable and sensible it would

have been in every way! She--Miss Challice--would have been just the

wife for him, eligible all round--a handsome accomplished young woman,

six years nearer his age than the other, with eighteen thousand pounds

dowry and no incumbrance--a young woman who would have sat at the head

of his table, ruled his house, and reared his children, with comfort

and pleasant smooth-working skill.

"I think she might have said 'Yes' had I asked her," he muses ruefully.

"Now that I come to think of it, she always seemed pleased to see me;

and her parents are continually asking me up to their place. But I

never even thought of it, never noticed--If I had--well, well, if I

had, she wouldn't have stared at me as if I had just escaped from a

lunatic asylum or the Zoölogical Gardens. No, I think not; her pretty

eyes would have drooped a little, her cheeks have flushed ever so

faintly, no matter which way her answer would have gone. And she has

such lovely hair, too--though I remember a brute at the club said

it was dyed, one night. I don't believe it a bit, not a bit! How

stupid, how exasperating of me never to have noticed how handsome and

attractive--yes, really attractive, by Jove!--Challice's daughter

is--his only daughter too! And now--now--"

He turns from the window to take another covert look.

Miss Lefroy has left her couch and is kneeling on the carpet, a gaunt,

green-eyed, grimy-coated cat clasped to her breast, over which she is

cooing with the rapturous joy of a mother over a downy-pated infant

whom she has lost and unexpectedly recovered.

"It's the Widow, Mr. Armstrong," she explains, with dewy upturned

eyes. "My own dear, darling, long-lost Widow, whom I thought never to

see again! She must have heard my voice through the open window; she

came flying in straight to my arms five minutes ago. Oh, you don't

know what a cat she is! We've had her nine years, and she's had about

eighty-seven kittens. Hal kept an account; and the rats and the mice

she has killed--no one could keep an account of them--could they, my

darling, could they?"

"She seems glad to see you again--hungrily glad," says Armstrong,

stroking her dusty fur; "and she is giving you a demonstrative welcome,

and no mistake! I wonder if anything or any one in the world would be

as glad to see me after a few months' absence?"

"Why, of course, Mr. Armstrong, your brothers and sisters--and other

relatives would!"

"I have no brothers and sisters, or other relatives--at least, no near

ones," he answers a little wistfully.

"Dear, how lonely you must feel!"--looking at him with compassionate

eyes.

"Miss Lefroy," he says quickly, swallowing a lump in his throat, "With

regard to the difficulty we were discussing a few minutes ago, I wish

you to understand that, in case you--you--should decide on accepting

my offer, I--should quite sympathize with your family feeling in the

matter, and sincerely hope you would be able to induce your sisters to

come and live with you here--in fact, to look on Nutsgrove as their

home as long as they liked."

"Oh!"

"As regards your brothers, the case is different. You see, my chi--I

mean, Miss Lefroy, I am much older than you or they, and I am satisfied

I should only be doing them an irreparable injustice if I asked them to

continue to live the life they have hitherto led here. Men must go out

into the world, fight their way, and learn the value of independence

and success--must earn the birthright of self-respect to transmit to

those who come after them. I know it will be a harder struggle for

them than for others brought up differently; but I should be always

by to give them an encouraging hand and help them with my advice and

experience; and then, when their occupation allowed it, they could

always come here for a holiday--in fact, continue to look upon the old

place as their head-quarters until they built up separate homes and

shaped interests for themselves, as most men do sooner or later."

"You are very kind--you are very kind," she answers breathlessly.

"You have said that before."

"I know; but what else can I say?"

"Say that you will marry me."

"Oh, I think I will soon--not just yet--not just yet! Will you give me

a few hours more--until to-morrow--to think and talk it over with the

others?"

"I will give you until to-morrow morning."

"Thank you--you are very kind. There is a brougham at the door--for me,

isn't it? I must be going now"--with a great sigh of relief.

"But can you walk?"

"Oh, yes, with a little help, quite easily."

"Here is my stick--not a Rotten Row crutch, you see--lean on it well on

one side, and on my arm on the other--so."

At the threshold of the door she pauses to rest a moment and take one

backward glance at the beloved flower-scented room, at the dainty table

all awry, at the Widow Malone, her raptures exhausted, sipping a saucer

of cream on the spotless carpet.

"Oh, what a mess I have made of your beautiful tidy room!" she cries in

childish dismay. "It is easily seen a Lefroy has been in possession.

It's quite disgraceful--the cushions all upside down, the antimacassars

crumpled, saucers on the floor, and an old bow from my polonaise, with

two crooked hairpins, stuck in the arm of the sofa. I must get them,

let me go."

"No," he says, laughing; "leave the room exactly as it is, and consider

your property confiscated, Miss Lefroy."

With an impulse that she can not control, she looks up into his face

and says quickly, with a puzzled frown--

"What made you do it? What put it into your head?"

"What put what into my head?"

"Oh, you know what I mean! What made you ask me to marry you?"

Here is a splendid opportunity for the orthodox declaration as yet

unuttered in this strange courtship; but Armstrong takes no advantage

thereof, he answers lightly enough, with smiling, careless face--

"What made me? I hardly know myself as yet. A variety of intangible

emotions that I must analyze at my leisure."

"Pity, compassion?" she suggests softly.

"For whom?"

"For--for your neighbor."

He shakes his head.

"No, they were not the chief ingredients certainly. I doubt if they had

anything to say to it."

"A feeling of wider philanthropy perhaps, more in the Don Quixote line?"

"No, Miss Lefroy. It is of no use; you can not thus lay light finger on

the crotchets of man's 'most sovereign reason;' do not try."

"Well, I--I don't mind much, so long as you don't think I--I was trying

to--"

She stops, blushing furiously.

"Trying to what?"

"Nothing, nothing."

"I'll not let you leave the room until you finish that sentence," he

says decisively.

"You are a tyrant! Trying--trying to catch you--there! Oh, why will you

make me say such things?"

"Trying to catch me!" he exclaims vehemently. "Good gracious, child!

how could I imagine such a thing?"

"Oh, I don't know, I'm sure!" she answers, floundering helplessly under

the half-amused, half-bitter expression of his dark face. "They say all

men are conceited, no matter what they're like, and--and Ellen Higgins

says that--that a great many of the Kelvick girls had their eyes on

you, but that--that Miss Challice made--made the running too hot

for--Oh, what am I saying--what am I saying? Mr. Armstrong, don't mind

me; I'm a light-headed fool--a regular fool! Bob always said I hadn't

an ounce of ballast, and I haven't--I haven't! Let me go, let me go!"

"If I let you go like this, how do I know I shall ever get you back

again?"

"You said you would give me until to-morrow to decide--you know you

did."

"I repent of my promise, then. I'd rather know now, if you please."

"But I can't decide in such a hurry. You, as a business man, ought to

know it's ill-judged to rush at decisions in such--"

"I'm not in my office now, and don't feel at all like a business man;

it's of no use appealing to me as such, Miss Lefroy. Listen, while I

tell you a crisp anecdote that may help to throw light on the crotchets

of my character."

"It's very late. I must go; auntie will be--"

"One soft spring day I was sitting in a room alone with a young lady--"

Addie stops unconsciously, interested in spite of herself.

"A young lady whom I knew very slightly, and in whom I had hitherto

taken not the faintest interest."

"Yes?"

"Until she happened to hand me a cup of tea--"

"Oh!"

"And the fancy suddenly struck me that I should like to marry that

girl; and, before I had finished my cup, my mind was made up--I

determined she should be my wife. That's all."

"That's all, is it?" says Addie, drawing a long breath. "I--I don't

like your story much. You were determined, were you? And do you always

get what you determine on?"

"I don't want to boast; but I've been rather lucky up to the present."

"And, if the thing--the person is determined the other way, what then?"

"What then? You know every Britisher has a bit of the bull in him,

and enjoys his fight, and you have heard also that flowers out of

reach--nearly out of reach--smell the sweetest."

"Oh, there speaks the man all over! You've one touch of nature with my

boys, at any rate, Mr. Armstrong--anything well out of reach has the

most attraction for them. Bob always gathers his fruit from the ridge

of the wall, and Hal would climb the tallest elm in the grove to rob a

nest, and yet never lay hand on that of the thrush that builds every

year in the gloire de Dijon under the window."

"Well, my limbs are not as supple as they were twenty years ago. I

wonder shall I have to climb very high for the nest I want?"

Addie looks down and makes no reply.

They have now reached the brougham, into which he assists her

carefully, placing his stout ash by her side.

"Better keep it for a day or two, Miss Lefroy--you may find it

serviceable; and remember the doctor's instruction."

He busies himself for a few moments propping up her foot with shawls

and cushions, and then, as the horse is about to start, says in a low

voice, looking up in her face entreatingly--

"I would try to make you happy."

"You are very kind," says poor Addie for the fourth and last time that

day; and then the horse plunges forward, and she is off.