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

“d⁠⸺⁠d trouble.” The idea of John Crumb coming up to London in his wrath had never occurred to him⁠—or he would probably have hurried on his journey to New York instead of delaying it, as he was doing now. “Let’s go in and have a dance,” he said.

Ruby was very fond of dancing⁠—perhaps liked it better than anything in the world. It was heaven to her to be spinning round the big room with her lover’s arm tight round her waist, with one hand in his and her other hanging over his back. She loved the music, and loved the motion. Her ear was good, and her strength was great, and she never lacked breath. She could spin along and dance a whole room down, and feel at the time that the world could have nothing to give better worth having than that;⁠—and such moments were too precious to be lost. She went and danced, resolving as she did so that she would have some answer to her question before she left her lover on that night.

“And now I must go,” she said at last. “You’ll see me as far as the Angel, won’t you?” Of course he was ready to see her as far as the Angel. “What am I to say to the Squire?”

“Say nothing.”

“And what am I to say to aunt?”

“Say to her? Just say what you have said all along.”

“I’ve said nothing all along⁠—just to oblige you, Felix. I must say something. A girl has got herself to mind. What have you got to say to me, Felix?”

He was silent for about a minute, meditating his answer. “If you bother me I shall cut it, you know.”

“Cut it!”

“Yes;⁠—cut it. Can’t you wait till I am ready to say something?”

“Waiting will be the ruin o’ me, if I wait much longer. Where am I to go, if Mrs. Pipkin won’t have me no more?”

“I’ll find a place for you.”

“You find a place! No; that won’t do. I’ve told you all that before. I’d sooner go into service, or⁠—”

“Go back to John Crumb.”

“John Crumb has more respect for me nor you. He’d make me his wife tomorrow, and only be too happy.”

“I didn’t tell you to come away from him,” said Sir Felix.

“Yes, you did. You told me as I was to come up to London when I saw you at Sheepstone Beeches;⁠—didn’t you? And you told me you loved me;⁠—didn’t you? And that if I wanted anything you’d get it done for me;⁠—didn’t you?”

“So I will. What do you want? I can give you a couple of sovereigns, if that’s what it is.”

“No it isn’t;⁠—and I won’t have your money. I’d sooner work my fingers off. I want you to say whether you mean to marry me. There!”

As to the additional lie which Sir Felix might now have told, that would have been nothing to him. He was going to New York, and would be out of the way of any trouble; and he thought that lies of that kind to young women never went for anything. Young women, he thought, didn’t believe them, but liked to be able to believe afterwards that they had been deceived. It wasn’t the lie that stuck in his throat, but the fact that he was a baronet. It was in his estimation “confounded impudence” on the part of Ruby Ruggles to ask to be his wife. He did not care for the lie, but he did not like to seem to lower himself by telling such a lie as that at her dictation. “Marry, Ruby! No, I don’t ever mean to marry. It’s the greatest bore out. I know a trick worth two of that.”

She stopped in the street and looked at him. This was a state of things of which she had never dreamed. She could imagine that a man should wish to put it off, but that he should have the face to declare to his young woman that he never meant to marry at all, was a thing that she could not understand. What business had such a man to go after any young woman? “And what do you mean that I’m to do, Sir Felix?” she said.

“Just go easy, and not make yourself a bother.”

“Not make myself a bother! Oh, but I will; I will. I’m to be carrying on with you, and nothing to come of it; but for you to tell me that you don’t mean to marry, never at all! Never?”

“Don’t you see lots of old bachelors about, Ruby?”

“Of course I does. There’s the Squire. But he don’t come asking girls to keep him company.”

“That’s more than you know, Ruby.”

“If he did he’d marry her out of hand⁠—because he’s a gentleman. That’s what he is, every inch of him. He never said a word to a girl⁠—not to do her any harm, I’m sure,” and Ruby began to cry. “You mustn’t come no further now, and I’ll never see you again⁠—never! I think you’re the falsest young man, and the basest, and the lowest-minded that I ever heard tell of. I know there are them as don’t keep their words. Things turn up, and they can’t. Or they gets to like others better; or there ain’t nothing to live on. But for a young man to come after a young woman, and then say, right out, as he never means to marry at all, is the lowest-spirited fellow that ever was. I never read of such a one in none of the books. No, I won’t. You go your way, and I’ll go mine.” In her passion she was as good as her word, and escaped from him, running all the way to her aunt’s door. There was in her mind a feeling of anger against the man, which she did not herself understand, in that he would incur no risk on her behalf. He would not even make a lover’s easy promise, in order that the present hour might be made pleasant. Ruby