The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

quite certain that no dependence whatever should be placed on that promise of assistance.”

“I quite agree with you. I am so much obliged to you,” said Lady Carbury, who was now determined that Felix should run off with the girl. “You have been so very kind.” Then again she gave him her hand, as though to bid him farewell for the night.

“And now,” he said, “I also have something to say to you.”

XXXI Mr. Broune Has Made Up His Mind

“And now I have something to say to you.” Mr. Broune as he thus spoke to Lady Carbury rose up to his feet and then sat down again. There was an air of perturbation about him which was very manifest to the lady, and the cause and coming result of which she thought that she understood. “The susceptible old goose is going to do something highly ridiculous and very disagreeable.” It was thus that she spoke to herself of the scene that she saw was prepared for her, but she did not foresee accurately the shape in which the susceptibility of the “old goose” would declare itself. “Lady Carbury,” said Mr. Broune, standing up a second time, “we are neither of us so young as we used to be.”

“No, indeed;⁠—and therefore it is that we can afford to ourselves the luxury of being friends. Nothing but age enables men and women to know each other intimately.”

This speech was a great impediment to Mr. Broune’s progress. It was evidently intended to imply that he at least had reached a time of life at which any allusion to love would be absurd. And yet, as a fact, he was nearer fifty than sixty, was young of his age, could walk his four or five miles pleasantly, could ride his cob in the park with as free an air as any man of forty, and could afterwards work through four or five hours of the night with an easy steadiness which nothing but sound health could produce. Mr. Broune, thinking of himself and his own circumstances, could see no reason why he should not be in love. “I hope we know each other intimately at any rate,” he said somewhat lamely.

“Oh, yes;⁠—and it is for that reason that I have come to you for advice. Had I been a young woman I should not have dared to ask you.”

“I don’t see that. I don’t quite understand that. But it has nothing to do with my present purpose. When I said that we were neither of us so young as we once were, I uttered what was a stupid platitude⁠—a foolish truism.”

“I did not think so,” said Lady Carbury smiling.

“Or would have been, only that I intended something further.” Mr. Broune had got himself into a difficulty and hardly knew how to get out of it. “I was going on to say that I hoped we were not too old to⁠—love.”

Foolish old darling! What did he mean by making such an ass of himself? This was worse even than the kiss, as being more troublesome and less easily pushed on one side and forgotten. It may serve to explain the condition of Lady Carbury’s mind at the time if it be stated that she did not even at this moment suppose that the editor of the Morning Breakfast Table intended to make her an offer of marriage. She knew, or thought she knew, that middle-aged men are fond of prating about love, and getting up sensational scenes. The falseness of the thing, and the injury which may come of it, did not shock her at all. Had she known that the editor professed to be in love with some lady in the next street, she would have been quite ready to enlist the lady in the next street among her friends that she might thus strengthen her own influence with Mr. Broune. For herself such make-belief of an improper passion would be inconvenient, and therefore to be avoided. But that any man, placed as Mr. Broune was in the world⁠—blessed with power, with a large income, with influence throughout all the world around him, courted, fêted, feared and almost worshipped⁠—that he should desire to share her fortunes, her misfortunes, her struggles, her poverty and her obscurity, was not within the scope of her imagination. There was a homage in it, of which she did not believe any man to be capable⁠—and which to her would be the more wonderful as being paid to herself. She thought so badly of men and women generally, and of Mr. Broune and herself as a man and a woman individually, that she was unable to conceive the possibility of such a sacrifice. “Mr. Broune,” she said, “I did not think that you would take advantage of the confidence I have placed in you to annoy me in this way.”

“To annoy you, Lady Carbury! The phrase at any rate is singular. After much thought I have determined to ask you to be my wife. That I should be⁠—annoyed, and more than annoyed by your refusal, is a matter of course. That I ought to expect such annoyance is perhaps too true. But you can extricate yourself from the dilemma only too easily.”

The word “wife” came upon her like a thunderclap. It at once changed all her feelings towards him. She did not dream of loving him. She felt sure that she never could love him. Had it been on the cards with her to love any man as a lover, it would have been some handsome spendthrift who would have hung from her neck like a nether millstone. This man was a friend to be used⁠—to be used because he knew the world. And now he gave her this clear testimony that he knew as little of the world as any other man. Mr. Broune of the “Daily Breakfast Table” asking her to be his wife! But mixed with her other feelings there was a tenderness which brought back some memory of her distant