Aprils Lady | Page 6

I see it now. But I couldn't bear to explain myself. I told you what I could about my father, and that seemed to me sufficient. Your people's determination to regard me as impossible tied my tongue."
"I don't believe it was that," says he laughing. "I believe we were so happy that we didn't care to discuss anything but each other. Delightful subjects full of infinite variety! We have sat so lightly to the world all these years, that if my father's letter had not come this morning I honestly think we should never have thought about him again."
This is scarcely true, but he is bent on giving her mind a happier turn if possible.
"What's the good of talking to me like that, Freddy," says she reproachfully. "You know one never forgets anything of that sort. A slight I mean; and from one's own family. You are always thinking of it; you know you are."
"Well, not always, my dear, certainly--" says Mr. Monkton temporizing. "And if even I do give way to retrospection, it is to feel indignant with both my parents."
"Yes; and I don't want you to feel like that. It must be dreadful, and it is my fault. When I think how I felt towards my dear old dad, and my uncle--I----"
"Well, never mind that. I've got you, and without meaning any gross flattery, I consider you worth a dozen dads. Tell me about your uncle. He died?"
"We don't know. He went abroad fifteen years ago. He must be dead I think, because if he were alive he would certainly have written to us. He was very fond of Joyce and me; but no letter from him has reached us for years. He was charming. I wish you could have known him."
"So do I--if you wish it. But--" coming over and sitting down beside her, "don't you think it is a little absurd, Barbara, after all these years, to think it necessary to tell me that you have good blood in your veins? Is it not a self-evident fact; and--one more word dearest--surely you might do me the credit to understand that I could never have fallen in love with anyone who hadn't an ancestor or two."
"And yet your father----"
"I know," rising to his feet, his brow darkening. "Do you think I don't suffer doubly on your account? That I don't feel the insolence of his behavior toward you four-fold? There is but one excuse for him and my mother, and that lies in their terrible disappointment about my brother--their eldest son."
"I know; you have told me," begins she quickly, but he interrupts her.
"Yes, I have been more open with you than you with me. I feel no pride where you are concerned. Of course my brother's conduct towards them is no excuse for their conduct towards you, but when one has a sore heart one is apt to be unjust, and many other things. You know what a heart-break he has been to the old people, and is! A gambler, a dishonorable gambler!" He turns away from her, and his nostrils dilate a little; his right hand grows clenched. "Every spare penny they possess has been paid over to him of his creditors, and they are not over-burdened with riches. They had set their hearts on him, and all their hopes, and when he failed them they fell back on me. The name is an old one; money was wanted. They had arranged a marriage for me, that would have been worldly wise. I too disappointed them!"
"Oh!" she has sprung to her feet, and is staring at him with horrified eyes. "A marriage! There was someone else! You accuse me of want of candor, and now, you--did you ever mention this before?"
"Now, Barbara, don't be the baby your name implies," says he, placing her firmly back in her seat. "I didn't marry that heiress, you know, which is proof positive that I loved you, not her."
"But she--she--" she stammers and ceases suddenly, looking at him with a glance full of question. Womanlike, everything has given way to the awful thought, that this unknown had not been unknown to him, and that perhaps he had admired--loved----
"Couldn't hold a candle to you," says he, laughing in spite of himself at her expression which, indeed, is nearly tragic. "You needn't suffocate yourself with charcoal because of her. She had made her pile, or rather her father had, at Birmingham or elsewhere, I never took the trouble to inquire, and she was undoubtedly solid in every way, but I don't care for the female giant, and so I--you know the rest, I met you; I tell you this only to soften your heart, if possible, towards these lonely, embittered old people of mine."
"Do you mean that when your brother disappointed them