Mrs. Day's Daughters Part 40

"He tells me--without any engagement on your part--he considers himself bound to you."

She shook her head quickly, her face rose-red: "Oh no!"

"He is always being engaged to--somebody: poor Reggie!"

"Is he?" she asked innocently.

"Reginald is my brother," he went on, and he turned his gaze from her face and looked at the finger-nails of his left hand with an absorbed attention. "He is, however, so much younger than myself that he has almost been like my son. You will give me credit, I am sure, for not wis.h.i.+ng to disparage Reginald, when I tell you that this is not by any means the first time Reginald has thought of marriage." He paused, and smiled awry to himself as he contemplated the finger-nails. "Or, rather, I should put it, not the first time he has talked to young ladies of being engaged to them."

Deleah sat silent, determined not to speak till speech was absolutely demanded of her.

"It has not cost my brother much to change his mind," Sir Francis said, and dropped his hand and looked at the pretty girl sitting before him.

"Since he has to do it so often, that is well," Deleah said.

"It is well, in a way," Sir Francis agreed. "But supposing that he took an irretrievable step, and then changed his mind?"

"That would be more serious," Deleah admitted.

"You understand what I mean, Miss Day?"

"Perfectly. You mean, supposing he married me and then repented, not having been given time to repent beforehand. Having been taken at his word as soon as he spoke--and s.n.a.t.c.hed up."

"That is putting the case more strongly than I had thought of doing; but--"

"But it is what you mean?"

"You are not offended, I hope?"

"No; because I quite understand. It would be surprising if you did not feel as you do about it."

Her voice shook a little, and Sir Francis felt compunction. After all, from the girl's side of the question, what a sacrifice this was he was so coolly demanding of her. He felt suddenly ashamed, and half afraid of what he had taken upon himself to do.

"I hope you believe I am actuated by no feeling antagonistic to yourself, Miss Day?"

"I think I understand that," she said gently.

And he knew that she comprehended, and was grateful to her that she did not say, "You hate, not me, but the grocer's shop; but the idea of an alliance with my father's daughter, my brother's sister." "After all the girl is a lady," he said to himself, and the thought crossed his mind: was his empty-headed young brother likely to marry a better woman than this?

All the same, his duty in the matter was clear before him.

"And you will do what I ask? You will help me to send the boy away?"

"He won't go for my telling, I fear."

"He won't go unless you tell him;" and he permitted himself to smile persuasively on her.

"Then I will tell him," she said gravely; and feeling that was all he wanted with her she got up and turned to the door.

He reached it before her. "Mine has been an ungracious task," he said. "It has seemed to me that it was demanded of me. I hope you will forgive me."

He said it quite earnestly, quite humbly, all his grand formality of manner laid aside for the moment. And the anger and the hurt pride which had been in her heart melted from it.

"You have been very kind to me, always. If there was anything to forgive I would forgive you," she said simply; and her face was charming with its look of innocent confidence in him, its wavering, shy smile.

"What I have said has been for my brother's sake," he a.s.sured her, compunction stirring at his heart. "But I believe it to be equally good for yours. You may not think so to-day, but you may take my word for it that you will come to think so."

He clasped her hand rea.s.suringly for a moment; then she went.

The letter from Sir Francis Forcus had been on Deleah's breakfast plate.

The family had the bad habit of expecting to see each other's letters.

They all knew who it was who had written, and what he had asked. At supper, when the family met again it was expected of Deleah to describe the interview, and publicly proclaim what had taken place.

Preferring to keep the matter to herself, she had eluded her mother and sister by going without her tea, gaining only by the delay the addition, to those already agog for her news, of the innocent Franky, of the ever-curious Emily, of an Honourable Charles consumed with jealous fears.

They would not even let her take her place at table before they were upon her. "Well?" inquired Bessie, alert, her suspicious, bright eyes upon her sister, who appeared a little pale of face, a little languid of manner, the effect of going without her tea, perhaps.

"Well?" Deleah echoed.

"I don't suppose it's a secret. Mama, I don't suppose Deleah has been sent for by Sir Francis Forcus for anything she can't tell!"

Emily, pouring out the lodger's supper beer, remarked that Miss Deleah was always one to keep things to herself, even when she had been a baby.

"I can't imagine, Deleah, what he can have wanted with you," Mrs. Day said, in answer to Bessie's appeal.

"It was nothing much, mama."

"It couldn't have been _nothing_. At least say if it was good or bad,"

persisted the elder sister. "I don't see why Deda need be so affected and silly, mama."

"Oh, do let me get some supper first," Deleah prayed.

"Thank you, Mr. Gibbon. Some beef, please."

Those prominent, burning eyes of the boarder, the eyes which Mrs. Day and Bessie had discovered rescued his face from the commonplace, were upon her face, with a desperately eager questioning. In his heart he believed that Sir Francis had sent for her to beg her to marry either himself or his brother. Supposing she had consented! Supposing she was going to say it now! His red, square-looking hands shook pitiably as he carved the beef and put it on her plate.

"Perhaps Miss Deleah would rather keep her news till I'm gone," he forced himself to say.

"Oh no," Deleah, who would infinitely have preferred to do so, but must not hurt his feelings, declared.

"It is about Reggie, I know," said Bessie, her eyes, filled with fierce questioning, on the girl.

It was not till Emily had reluctantly withdrawn that Deleah confessed that Bessie was right, and told her news defiantly, in a sentence. "Sir Francis sent for me to ask me not to marry his brother," she said, and applied herself to the contents of her plate as if she were really enjoying them.

For a minute, speechless with surprise, they gazed upon her.

"But _were_ you going to marry him?" Bessie at length inquired.