'Lady Arabella,' she said, 'I think that you do not understand me, and that it is not likely that you should. If so, our further talking will be worse than useless. I have taken no account of what will be given between your son and me in your sense of the word giving. But he has professed to--to love me'--as she spoke, she still looked on the lady's face, but her eyelashes screened her eyes, and her colour was a little heightened--'and I have acknowledged that I also love him, and so we are engaged. To me my promise is sacred. I will not be threatened into breaking it. If, however, he shall wish to change his mind, he can do so. I will not upbraid him; will not, if I can help it, think harshly of him. So much you may tell him if it suits you; but I will not listen to your calculations as to how much or how little each of us may have to give to the other.'
She was still standing when she finished speaking, and so she continued to stand. Her eyes were fixed on Lady Arabella, and her position seemed to say that sufficient words had been spoken, and that it was time that her ladyship should go; and so Lady Arabella felt it. Gradually she also rose; slowly, but tacitly, she acknowledged that she was in the presence of a spirit superior to her own; and so she took her leave.
'Very well,' she said, in a tone that was intended to be grandiloquent, but which failed grievously; 'I will tell him that he has your permission to think a second time on this matter. I do not doubt that he will do so.' Mary would not condescend to answer, but curtsied low as her visitor left the room. And so the interview was over.
The interview was over, and Mary was alone. She remained standing as long as she heard the footsteps of Frank's mother on the stairs; not immediately thinking of what had passed, but still buoying herself up with her hot indignation, as though her work with Lady Arabella was not yet finished; but when the footfall was no longer heard, and the sound of the closing door told her that she was in truth alone, she sank back in her seat, and, covering her face with her hands, burst into bitter tears.
All that doctrine about money was horrible to her; that insolent pretence, that she had caught at Frank because of his worldly position, made her all but ferocious; but Lady Arabella had not the less spoken much that was true. She did think of the position which the heir of Greshamsbury should hold in the county, and of the fact that such a marriage would mar that position so vitally; she did think of the old name, and the old Gresham pride; she did think of the squire and his deep distress: it was true that she had lived among them long enough to understand these things, and to know that it was not possible that this marriage should take place without deep family sorrow.
And then she asked herself whether, in consenting to accept Frank's hand, she had adequately considered this; and she was forced to acknowledge that she had not considered it. She had ridiculed Lady Arabella for saying that Frank was still a boy; but was it not true that his offer had been made with a boy's energy, rather than a man's forethought? If so, if she had been wrong to accede to that offer when made, would she not be doubly wrong to hold him to it now that she saw his error?
It was doubtless true that Frank himself could not be the first to draw back. What would people say of him? She could now calmly ask herself the question that had so angered her, when asked by Lady Arabella. If he could not do it, and if, nevertheless, it behoved them to break off this match, by whom was it to be done if not by her? Was not Lady Arabella right throughout, right in her conclusions, though so foully wrong in her manner of drawing them?
And then she did think for one moment of herself. 'You who have nothing to give in return!' Such had been Lady Arabella's main accusation against her. Was it in fact true that she had nothing to give? Her maiden love, her feminine pride, her very life, and spirit, and being--were these things nothing? Were they to be weighed against pounds sterling per annum? and, when so weighed, were they ever to kick the beam like feathers? All these things had been nothing to her when, without reflection, governed wholly by the impulse of the moment, she had first allowed his daring hand to lie for an instant in her own. She had thought nothing of these things when that other suitor came, richer far than Frank, to love whom it was impossible to her as it was not to love him.
Her love had been pure from all such thoughts; she was conscious that it ever would be pure from them. Lady Arabella was unable to comprehend this, and, therefore, was Lady Arabella so utterly distasteful to her.
