Stella Fregelius | Page 7

Rose, or that handsome Eliza Layard," went on the
Colonel, taking no notice. "I have reason to know that you might have
either of them for the asking, and they are both good women without a
breath against them, and, what in the state of this property is not
without importance, very well to do. Jane gets fifty thousand pounds
down on the day of her marriage, and as much more, together with the
place, upon old Lady Rose's death; while Miss Layard--if she is not
quite to the manner born--has the interest in that great colliery and a
rather sickly brother. Lastly--and this is strange enough, considering
how you treat them--they admire you, or at least Eliza does, for she told
me she thought you the most interesting man she had ever met."
"Did she indeed!" ejaculated Morris. "Why, I have only spoken three
times to her during the last year."
"No doubt, my dear boy, that is why she thinks you interesting. To her
you are a mine of splendid possibilities. But I understand that you don't
like either of them."
"No, not particularly--especially Eliza Layard, who isn't a lady, and has
a vicious temper--nor any young woman whom I have ever met."

"Do you mean to tell me candidly, Morris, that at your age you detest
women?"
"I don't say that; I only say that I never met one to whom I felt much
attracted, and that I have met a great many by whom I was repelled."
"Decidedly, Morris, in you the strain of the ancestral fish is too
predominant. It isn't natural; it really isn't. You ought to have been born
three centuries ago, when the old monks lived here. You would have
made a first-class abbot, and might have been canonised by now. Am I
to understand, then, that you absolutely decline to marry?"
"No, father; I don't want you to understand anything of the sort. If I
could meet a lady whom I liked, and who wouldn't expect too much,
and who was foolish enough to wish to take me, of course I should
marry her, as you are so bent upon it."
"Well, Morris, and what sort of a woman would fulfil the conditions, to
your notion?"
His son looked about him vaguely, as though he expected to find his
ideal in some nook of the dim garden.
"What sort of a woman? Well, somebody like my cousin Mary, I
suppose-- an easy-going person of that kind, who always looks pleasant
and cool."
Morris did not see him, for he had turned his head away; but at the
mention of Mary Porson's name his father started, as though someone
had pricked him with a pin. But Colonel Monk had not commanded a
regiment with some success and been a military attache for nothing;
having filled diplomatic positions, public and private, in his time, he
could keep his countenance, and play his part when he chose. Indeed,
did his simpler-minded son but know it, all that evening he had been
playing a part.
"Oh! that's your style, is it?" he said. "Well, at your age I should have
preferred something a little different. But there is no accounting for

tastes; and after all, Mary is a beautiful woman, and clever in her own
way. By Jove! there's one o'clock striking, and I promised old Charters
that I would always be in bed by half-past eleven. Good night, my boy.
By the way, you remember that your uncle Porson is coming to
Seaview to-morrow from London, and that we are engaged to dine with
him at eight. Fancy a man who could build that pretentious monstrosity
and call it Seaview! Well, it will condemn him to the seventh
generation; but in this world one must take people as one finds them,
and their houses, too. Mind you lock the garden door when you come
in. Good night."
"Really," thought Colonel Monk to himself as he took off his dress-
shoes and, with military precision, set them side by side beneath a chair,
"it does seem a little hard on me that I should be responsible for a son
who is in love with a damned, unworkable electrical machine. And
with his chances--with his chances! Why he might have been a second
secretary in the Diplomatic Service by now, or anything else to which
interest could help him. And there he sits hour after hour gabbling
down a little trumpet and listening for an answer which never
comes--hour after hour, and month after month, and year after year. Is
he a genius, or is he an idiot, or a moral curiosity, or simply useless?
I'm hanged if I know, but that's a good idea about Mary; though, of
course, there are things against it. Curious that I