‘A good day’s work!’ he repeated to himself as he ran downstairs. ‘I don’t know when I have been so happy!’ For he had not told Molly all that had passed between him and Roger. Roger had begun a fresh subject of conversation just as Mr. Gibson was hastening away from the Hall, after completing the new arrangement for Aimée and her child.
‘You know that I set off next Tuesday, Mr. Gibson, don’t you?’ said Roger, a little abruptly.
‘To be sure. I hope you’ll be as successful in all your scientific objects as you were the last time, and have no sorrows awaiting you when you come back.’
‘Thank you. Yes. I hope so. You don’t think there’s any danger of infection now, do you?’
‘No! If the disease were to spread through the household, I think we should have had some signs of it before now. One is never sure, remember, with scarlet fever.’
Roger was silent for a minute or two. ‘Should you be afraid,’ he said at length, ‘of seeing me at your house?’
‘Thank you; but I think I would rather decline the pleasure of your society there at present. It’s only three weeks or a month since the child began. Besides, I shall be over here again before you go. I’m always on my guard against symptoms of dropsy. I have known it supervene.’
‘Then I shall not see Molly again!’ said Roger, in a tone and with a look of great disappointment.
Mr. Gibson turned his keen, observant eyes upon the young man, and looked at him in as penetrating a manner as if he had been beginning with an unknown illness. Then the doctor and the father compressed his lips and gave vent to a long intelligent whistle. ‘Whew!’ said he.
Roger’s bronzed cheeks took a deeper shade.
‘You will take a message to her from me, won’t you? A message of farewell!’ he pleaded.
‘Not I. I’m not going to be a message-carrier between any young man and young woman. I’ll tell my womenkind I forbade you to come near the house, and that you’re sorry to go away without bidding good-bye. That’s all I shall say.’
‘But you do not disapprove?—I see you guess why. Oh! Mr. Gibson, just speak to me one word of what must be in your heart, though you are pretending not to understand why I would give worlds to see Molly again before I go.’
‘My dear boy!’ said Mr. Gibson, more affected than he liked to show, and laying his hand on Roger’s shoulder. Then he pulled himself up, and said gravely enough,—
‘Mind, Molly is not Cynthia. If she were to care for you, she is not one who could transfer her love to the next comer.’
‘You mean not as readily as I have done,’ replied Roger. ‘I only wish you could know what a different feeling this is to my boyish love for Cynthia.’
‘I wasn’t thinking of you when I spoke; but, however, as I might have remembered afterwards that you were not a model of constancy, let us hear what you have to say for yourself.’
‘Not much. I did love Cynthia very much. Her manners and her beauty bewitched me; but her letters,-short, hurried letters,—sometimes showing that she really hadn’t taken the trouble to read mine through,—I cannot tell you the pain they gave me! Twelve months’ solitude, in frequent danger of one’s life—face to face with death-sometimes ages a man like many years’ experience. Still I longed for the time when I should see her sweet face again, and hear her speak. Then the letter at the Cape!—and still I hoped. But you know how I found her, when I went to have the interview which I trusted might end in the renewal of our relations,-engaged to Mr. Henderson. I saw her walking with him in your garden, coquetting with him about a flower, just as she used to do with me. I can see the pitying look in Molly’s eyes as she watched me; I can see it now. And I could beat myself for being such a blind fool as to- What must she think of me? how she must despise me, choosing the false Duessa.’el
‘Come, come! Cynthia isn’t so bad as that. She’s a very fascinating, faulty creature.’
‘I know! I know! I will never allow any one to say a word against her. If I called her the false Duessa it was because I wanted to express my sense of the difference between her and Molly as strongly as I could. You must allow for a lover’s exaggeration. Besides, all I wanted to say was,-Do you think that Molly, after seeing and knowing that I had loved a person so inferior to herself, could ever be brought to listen to me?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t tell. And even if I could, I wouldn’t. Only if it’s any comfort to you, I may say what my experience has taught me. Women are queer, unreasoning creatures, and are just as likely as not to love a man who has been throwing away his affection.’
‘Thank you, sir!’ said Roger, interrupting him. ‘I see you mean to give me encouragement. And I had resolved never to give Molly a hint of what I felt till I returned,—and then to try and win her by every means in my power. I determined not to repeat the former scene in the former place,—in your drawing-room,-however, I might be tempted. And perhaps, after all, she avoided me when she was here last.’
‘Now, Roger, I’ve listened to you long enough. If you’ve nothing better to do with your time than to talk about my daughter, I have. When you come back it will be time enough to inquire how far your father would approve of such an engagement.’
‘He himself urged it upon me the other day—but then I was in despair—I thought it was too late.’
‘And what means you are likely to have of maintaining a wife,—I always thought that point was passed too lightly over when you formed your hurried engagement to Cynthia. I’m not mercenary,-Molly has some money independently of me,-that she, by the way, knows nothing of,-not much;—and I can allow her something. But all these things must be left till your return.’
‘Then you sanction my attachment?’
‘I don’t know what you mean by sanctioning it. I can’t help it. I suppose losing one’s daughter is a necessary evil. Still’—seeing the disappointed expression on Roger’s face—‘it is but fair to you to say I’d rather give my child—my only child, remember!-to you, than to any man in the world!’
‘Thank you!’ said Roger, shaking hands with Mr. Gibson, almost against the will of the latter. ‘And I may see her, just once, before I go?’
‘Decidedly not. There I come in as doctor as well as father. No!’
‘But you will take a message, at any rate?’
‘To my wife and to her conjointly. I will not separate them. I will not in the slightest way be a go-between.’
‘Very well,’ said Roger. ‘Tell them both as strongly as you can how I regret your prohibition. I see I must submit. But if I don’t come back, I’ll haunt you for having been so cruel.’
‘Come, I like that. Give me a wise man of science in love! No one beats him in folly. Good-bye.’
‘Good-bye. You will see Molly this afternoon!’
‘To be sure. And you will see your father. But I don’t heave such portentous sighs at the thought.’
Mr. Gibson gave Roger’s message to his wife and to Molly that evening at dinner. It was but what the latter had expected, after all her father had said of the very great danger of infection; but now that her expectation came in the shape of a final decision, it took away her appetite. She submitted in silence; but her observant father noticed that after this speech of his, she only played with the food on her plate, and concealed a good deal of it under her knife and fork.
‘Lover versus father!’ thought he, half sadly. ‘Lover wins.’ And he, too, became indifferent to all that remained of his dinner. Mrs. Gibson pattered on; and nobody listened.