"No, you will not, if I can make you understand my feelings. Put yourself in my place, dearest. Here am I, fighting the good fight for you, against long odds; and, at last, the brickmakers and bricklayers have beat us. Now you know that is a bitter cup for me to drink. Well, I come up here for my one drop of comfort; and out walks my declared rival, looks into my face, sees my trouble there, and turns off with a glance of insolent triumph." (Grace flushed.)
"And then consider: I am your choice, yet I am only allowed to visit you once a week."
"That is papa's doing."
"No matter; so it is. Yet my rival can come when he pleases: and no doubt he does come every other day."
"You fancy that."
"It is not all fancy; for--by heaven! there he is at the gate. Two visits to my one; there. Well, all the better, I'll talk to HIM."
He rose from his seat black with wrath.
Grace turned pale, and rang the bell in a moment.
The servant entered the room, just as Mr. Coventry knocked at the door.
"Not at home to anybody," said she.
Mr. Coventry's voice was heard to say incredulously, "Not at home?"
Then he retired slowly, and did not leave the neighborhood. He had called at an hour when Grace was always at home.
Henry sat down, and said, "Thank you, Grace." But he looked very gloomy and disturbed.
She sat down too, and then they looked at each other.
Henry was the first to speak. "We are both pupils of the good doctor. Put yourself in my place. That man troubles our love, and makes my heavy heart a sore heart."
The tears were in Grace's eyes. "Dearest," said she, "I will not put myself in your place; you would lose by that, for I love you better than myself. Yes, it is unjust that you should be allowed to visit me but once a week, and he should visit me when he chooses. I assure you I have permitted his visits out of pure good-nature; and now I will put an end to them."
She drew her desk toward her, and wrote to Mr. Coventry. It took her some little time. She handed Henry the letter to read. He took it in his hand; but hesitated. He inquired what would be the effect of it?
"That he will never visit me again till you and I are married, or engaged, and that is the same thing. Why don't you read it?"
"I don't know: it goes against me, somehow. Seems unmanly. I'll take your word for it."
This charmed Grace. "Ah," said she, "I have chosen right."
Then he kissed her hands, and blessed her: and then she told him it was nothing; he was a goose, and had no idea what she would do for him; "more than you would do for me, I know," said she.
That he denied, and then she said she might perhaps put him to the proof some day.
They were so happy together, time slipped away unheeded. It was full three hours before Henry could tear himself away, though he knew he was wanted at the works; and he went out at the gate, glowing with happiness: and Coventry, who was ready to drop with the fatigue of walking and watching just above, saw him come out triumphant.
Then it was his turn to feel a deadly qualm. However, he waited a little longer, and then made his call.
"Not at home."
Henry, on his way to the works, looked in on his mother, and told her how nobly Grace had behaved.
Mrs. Little was pleased, and it smoothed down her maternal bristles, and made it much easier for her to carry out her design. For the first time since Mr. Carden had offended her by his cold-blooded treatment of her son, she called at Woodbine Villa.
Grace was at home to see her, and met her with a blushing timidity, and piteous, wistful looks, not easy to misunderstand nor to resist.
They soon came to an understanding, and Mrs. Little told Grace what Dr. Amboyne had promised to do, and represented to her how much better it would be for Henry to fall into his uncle Raby's views, than to engage in hopeless struggles like that in which Mr. Bolt and he had just been so signally defeated. "And then, you know, my dear, you could marry next month--you two; that is to say, if YOU felt disposed: I will answer for Henry."
Grace's red face and swimming eyes told how this shaft went home.
In short, she made a coy promise that she would co-operate with Mrs.
Little "and," said she, "how lucky! he has almost promised to grant me the first favor I ask him. Well, I shall entreat him to be a good nephew, and do whatever dear Mr. Raby asks him. But of course I shall not say, and then if you do, you and I"--here the young lady cut her sentence very short.
"Of course not," said Mrs. Little. "THAT will follow as a matter of course. Now, my dear, you and I are conspirators--for his good: and we must write often and let each other know all we do."
With this understanding, and a good many pretty speeches and kisses, they parted.
Dr. Amboyne did not recover so quickly as they could have wished; but they employed the interval. Feelers were adroitly applied to Henry by both ladies, and they were pleased to find that he rather admired his wrong-headed uncle, and had been deeply touched by the old gentleman's address to his mother's picture.
Bolt never came near him, and the grass was beginning to grow on the condemned bricks. In short, every thing seemed to incline in one direction.
There was, however, something very serious going on out of their sight.
"Not at home!" That white lie made Mr. Coventry feel sick at heart.
He went home disconsolate. The same evening he received Miss Carden's letter.
The writer treated him like a gentleman, said a few words about her own peculiar position, and begged him to consider that position, and to be very generous; to cease his visits entirely for the present, and so give himself one more title to her esteem, which was all she had to give him. This was the purport, and the manner was simply perfect, so gentle yet firm; and then she flattered his amour propre by asking that from his generosity which she could have taken as a right: she did all she could to soften the blow. But she failed.
The letter was posted too soon after Henry's visit. Behind the velvet paw that struck him, Coventry saw the claws of the jealous lover. He boiled with rage and agony, and cursed them both in his fury.
