‘Brute!’ he exclaimed.

’Not at all.  And when we are settled down in the real Darby-and-Joan way I shall hope to see Mr Longstaff very often.  I daresay he won’t call me a pert poppet, and I shall not remind him of the word.  But I shall always think of it; and remembering the way in which my character struck an educated Englishman,—­who was not altogether ill-disposed towards me,—­I may hope to improve myself.’

CHAPTER 73

‘I Have Never Loved You.’

Silverbridge had now been in town three or four weeks, and Lady Mabel Grex had also been in London all that time, and yet he had not seen her.  She had told him that she loved him and had asked him plainly to make her his wife.  He had told her he could not do so,—­that he was altogether resolved to make another woman his wife.  Then she had rebuked him, and had demanded from him how he had dared to treat her as he had done.  His conscience was clear.  He had his own code or morals as to such matters; and had, as he regarded it, kept within the law.  But she thought that she was badly treated, and had declared that she was now left out in the cold for ever through his treachery.  Then her last word had been almost the worst of all, ’Who can tell what may come to pass?’—­ showing too plainly that she would not even now give up her hope.  Before the month was up she wrote to him as follows: 

’Dear lord Silverbridge,

’Why do you not come and see me?  Are friends so plentiful with you that one so staunch as I may be thrown over?  But of course I know why you do not come.  Put all that aside,—­and come.  I cannot hurt you.  I have learned to feel that certain things which the world regards as too awful to be talked of,—­except in the way of scandal, may be discussed and then laid aside just like other subjects.  What though I wear a wig or a wooden leg, I may still be fairly comfortable among my companions unless I crucify myself by trying to hide my misfortune.  It is not the presence of the skeleton that crushes us.  Not even that will hurt us much if we let him go about the house as he lists.  It is the everlasting effort which the horror makes to peep out of his cupboard that robs us of our ease.  At any rate come and see me.

’Of course I know that you are to be married to Miss Boncassen.  Who does not know it?  The trumpeters have been at work for the last week.

’Your very sincere Friend,
‘Mabel.’

He wished that she had not written.  Of course he must go to her.  And though there was a word or two in her letter which angered him, his feelings towards her were kindly.  Had not that American angel flown across the Atlantic to his arms he could have been well content to make her his wife.  But the interview at the present moment could hardly be other than painful.  She could, she said, talk of her own misfortunes, but the subject would be very painful to him.  It was not to him a skeleton, to be locked out of sight, but it had been a misfortune, and the sooner that such misfortune could be forgotten the better.