The Way We Live Now Part 53

But all my friends--"

"Am I among the number, Miss Carbury?"

"Yes;--I suppose so. Of course you are. Why not? Of course you are a friend,--because you are his friend."

"Look here, Hetta," he said. "It is no good going on like this. I love Roger Carbury,--as well as one man can love another. He is all that you say,--and more. You hardly know how he denies himself, and how he thinks of everybody near him. He is a gentleman all round and every inch. He never lies. He never takes what is not his own. I believe he does love his neighbour as himself."

"Oh, Mr. Montague! I am so glad to hear you speak of him like that."

"I love him better than any man,--as well as a man can love a man. If you will say that you love him as well as a woman can love a man,--I will leave England at once, and never return to it."

"There's mamma," said Henrietta;--for at that moment there was a double knock at the door.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

"I DO LOVE HIM."

So it was. Lady Carbury had returned home from the soiree of learned people, and had brought Roger Carbury with her. They both came up to the drawing-room and found Paul and Henrietta together. It need hardly be said that they were both surprised. Roger supposed that Montague was still at Liverpool, and, knowing that he was not a frequent visitor in Welbeck Street, could hardly avoid a feeling that a meeting between the two had now been planned in the mother's absence. The reader knows that it was not so. Roger certainly was a man not liable to suspicion, but the circ.u.mstances in this case were suspicious. There would have been nothing to suspect,--no reason why Paul should not have been there,--but from the promise which had been given. There was, indeed, no breach of that promise proved by Paul's presence in Welbeck Street; but Roger felt rather than thought that the two could hardly have spent the evening together without such breach. Whether Paul had broken the promise by what he had already said the reader must be left to decide.

Lady Carbury was the first to speak. "This is quite an unexpected pleasure, Mr. Montague." Whether Roger suspected anything or not, she did. The moment she saw Paul the idea occurred to her that the meeting between Hetta and him had been preconcerted.

"Yes," he said making a lame excuse, where no excuse should have been made,--"I had nothing to do, and was lonely, and thought that I would come up and see you." Lady Carbury disbelieved him altogether, but Roger felt a.s.sured that his coming in Lady Carbury's absence had been an accident. The man had said so, and that was enough.

"I thought you were at Liverpool," said Roger.

"I came back to-day,--to be present at that Board in the city. I have had a good deal to trouble me. I will tell you all about it just now.

What has brought you to London?"

"A little business," said Roger.

Then there was an awkward silence. Lady Carbury was angry, and hardly knew whether she ought not to show her anger. For Henrietta it was very awkward. She, too, could not but feel that she had been caught, though no innocence could be whiter than hers. She knew well her mother's mind, and the way in which her mother's thoughts would run.

Silence was frightful to her, and she found herself forced to speak.

"Have you had a pleasant evening, mamma?"

"Have you had a pleasant evening, my dear?" said Lady Carbury, forgetting herself in her desire to punish her daughter.

"Indeed, no," said Hetta, attempting to laugh, "I have been trying to work hard at Dante, but one never does any good when one has to try to work. I was just going to bed when Mr. Montague came in. What did you think of the wise men and the wise women, Roger?"

"I was out of my element, of course; but I think your mother liked it."

"I was very glad indeed to meet Dr. Palmoil. It seems that if we can only open the interior of Africa a little further, we can get everything that is wanted to complete the chemical combination necessary for feeding the human race. Isn't that a grand idea, Roger?"

"A little more elbow grease is the combination that I look to."

"Surely, Roger, if the Bible is to go for anything, we are to believe that labour is a curse and not a blessing. Adam was not born to labour."

"But he fell; and I doubt whether Dr. Palmoil will be able to put his descendants back into Eden."

"Roger, for a religious man, you do say the strangest things! I have quite made up my mind to this;--if ever I can see things so settled here as to enable me to move, I will visit the interior of Africa. It is the garden of the world."

This sc.r.a.p of enthusiasm so carried them through their immediate difficulties that the two men were able to take their leave and to get out of the room with fair comfort. As soon as the door was closed behind them Lady Carbury attacked her daughter. "What brought him here?"

"He brought himself, mamma."

"Don't answer me in that way, Hetta. Of course he brought himself.

That is insolent."

"Insolent, mamma! How can you say such hard words? I meant that he came of his own accord."

"How long was he here?"

"Two minutes before you came in. Why do you cross-question me like this? I could not help his coming. I did not desire that he might be shown up."

"You did not know that he was to come?"

"Mamma, if I am to be suspected, all is over between us."

"What do you mean by that?"

"If you can think that I would deceive you, you will think so always.

If you will not trust me, how am I to live with you as though you did? I knew nothing of his coming."

"Tell me this, Hetta; are you engaged to marry him?"

"No;--I am not."

"Has he asked you to marry him?"

Hetta paused a moment, considering, before she answered this question. "I do not think he ever has."

"You do not think?"

"I was going on to explain. He never has asked me. But he has said that which makes me know that he wishes me to be his wife."

"What has he said? When did he say it?"

Again she paused. But again she answered with straightforward simplicity. "Just before you came in, he said--; I don't know what he said; but it meant that."

"You told me he had been here but a minute."

"It was but very little more. If you take me at my word in that way, of course you can make me out to be wrong, mamma. It was almost no time, and yet he said it."

"He had come prepared to say it."

"How could he,--expecting to find you?"