第122章

"We will leave the past," he said, "and consider the future. I was about to remark, that I do not intend to fall under your displeasure again for the like offense. I believe you have never wholly forgiven it."

"And never shall," cried she, impetuously. "I did not deserve the slight."

"Therefore, almost as soon as I know it myself, I acquaint you. I am about to marry a second time, Cornelia."

Miss Carlyle started up. Her spectacles dropped off her nose, and a knitting-box which she happened to have on her knees, clattered to the floor.

"What did you say?" she uttered, aghast.

"I'm about to marry."

"You!"

"I. Is there anything so very astonishing in it?"

"For the love of common sense, don't go and make such a fool of yourself. You have done it once; was not that enough for you, but you must run your head into the noose again?"

"Now, Cornelia, can you wonder that I do not speak of things when you meet them in this way? You treat me just as you did when I was a child. It is very foolish."

"When folk act childishly, they must be treated as children. I always thought you were mad when you married before, but I shall think you doubly mad now."

"Because you have preferred to remain single and solitary yourself, is it any reason why you should condemn me to do the same? You are happy alone; I should be happier with a wife.

"That she may go and disgrace you, as the last one did!" intemperately spoke Miss Carlyle, caring not a rush what she said in her storm of anger.

Mr. Carlyle's brow flushed, but he controlled his temper.

"No," he calmly replied. "I am not afraid of that in the one I have now chosen."

Miss Corny gathered her knitting together, he had picked up her box.

Her hands trembled, and the lines of her face were working. It was a blow to her as keen as the other had been.

"Pray who is it that you have chosen?" she jerked forth. "The whole neighborhood has been after you."

"Let it be who it will, Cornelia, you will be sure to grumble. Were I to say that it was a royal princess, or a peasant's daughter, you would equally see grounds for finding fault."

"Of course I should. I know who it is--that stuck-up Louisa Dobede."

"No, it is not. I never had the slightest intention of choosing Louisa Dobede, nor she of choosing me. I am marrying to please myself, and, for a wife, Louisa Dobede would not please me."

"As you did before," sarcastically put in Miss Corny.

"Yes; as I did before."

"Well, can't you open your mouth and say who it is?" was the exasperated rejoinder.

"It is Barbara Hare."

"Who?" shrieked Miss Carlyle.

"You are not deaf, Cornelia."

"Well, you /are/ an idiot!" she exclaimed, lifting up her hands and eyes.

"Thank you," he said, but without any signs of irritation.

"And so you are; /you are/, Archibald. To suffer that girl, who has been angling after you so long, to catch you at last."

"She has not angled after me; had she done so, she would probably never have been Mrs. Carlyle. Whatever passing fancy she may have entertained for me in earlier days, she has shown no symptoms of it of late years; and I am quite certain that she had no more thought or idea that I should choose her for my second wife, than you had I should choose you. Others have angled after me too palpably, but Barbara has not."

"She is a conceited minx, as vain as she is high."

"What else have you to urge against her?"

"I would have married a girl without a slur, if I must have married," aggravatingly returned Miss Corny.

"Slur?"

"Slur, yes. Dear me, is it an honor--the possessing a brother such as Richard?"

Miss Corny sniffed. "Pigs may fly; but I never saw them try at it."

"The next consideration, Cornelia, is about your residence. You will go back, I presume, to your own home."

Miss Corny did not believe her own ears. "Go back to my own home!" she exclaimed. "I shall do nothing of the sort. I shall stop at East Lynne. What's to hinder me?"

Mr. Carlyle shook his head. "It cannot be," he said, in a low, decisive tone.

"Who says so?" she sharply asked.

"I do. Have you forgotten that night--when she went away--the words spoken by Joyce? Cornelia, whether they were true or false, I will not subject another to the chance."

She did not answer. Her lips parted and closed again. Somehow, Miss Carlyle could not bear to be reminded of that revelation of Joyce's; it subdued even her.

"I cast no reflection upon you," hastily continued Mr. Carlyle. "You have been a mistress of a house for many years, and you naturally look to be so; it is right you should. But two mistresses in a house do not answer, Cornelia; they never did, and they never will."

"Why did you not give me so much of your sentiments when I first came to East Lynne?" she burst forth. "I hate hypocrisy."

"They were not my sentiments then; I possessed none. I was ignorant upon the subject as I was upon many others. Experience has come to me since."

"You will not find a better mistress of a house than I have made you," she resentfully spoke.