The Irrational Knot Part 13

"A letter, Nelly!" said Marian. "A letter! A letter from Marmaduke! I have extorted leave for you to read it. Here it is. Handle it carefully, pray."

"Has he proposed?" said Elinor, taking it.

Constance changed color. Elinor opened the letter in silence, and read:

My dear Constance:

I hope you are quite well. I am having an awfully jolly time of it here. What a pity it is you dont come over! I was wis.h.i.+ng for you yesterday in the Louvre, where we spent a pleasant day looking at the pictures. I send you the silk you wanted, and had great trouble hunting through half-a-dozen shops for it. Not that I mind the trouble, but just to let you see my devotion to you. I have no more to say at present, as it is nearly post hour. Remember me to the clan.

Yours ever, DUKE.

P.S.--How do Nelly and your mother get along together?

Whilst Elinor was reading, the gardener pa.s.sed the summer-house, and Constance went out and spoke to him. Elinor looked significantly at Marian.

"Nelly," returned Marian, in hushed tones of reproach, "you have stabbed poor Constance to the heart by telling her that Marmaduke never proposed to her. That is why she has gone out."

"Yes," said Elinor, "it was brutal. But I thought, as you made such a fuss about the letter, that it must have been a proposal at least. It cant be helped now. It is one more enemy for me, that is all."

"What do you think of the letter? Was it not kind of him to write--considering how careless he is usually?"

"Hm! Did he match the silk properly?".

"To perfection. He must really have taken some trouble. You know how he botched getting the ribbon for his fancy dress at the ball last year."

"That is just what I was thinking about. Do you remember also how he ridiculed the Louvre after his first trip to Paris, and swore that nothing would ever induce him to enter it again?"

"He has got more sense now. He says in the letter that he spent yesterday there."

"Not exactly. He says '_we_ spent a pleasant day looking at the pictures.' Who is '_we_'?"

"Some companion of his, I suppose. Why?"

"I was just thinking could it be the person who has matched the silk so well. The same woman, I mean."

"Oh, Nelly!"

"Oh, Marian! Do you suppose Marmaduke would spend an afternoon at the Louvre with a man, who could just as well go by himself? Do men match silks?"

"Of course they do. Any fly-fisher can do it better than a woman.

Really, Nell, you have an odious imagination."

"Yes--when my imagination is started on an odious track. Nothing will persuade me that Marmaduke cares a straw for Constance. He does not want to marry her, though he is too great a coward to own it."

"Why do you say so? I grant you he is unceremonious and careless. But he is the same to everybody."

"Yes: to everybody _we_ know. What is the use of straining after an amiable view of things, Marian, when a cynical view is most likely to be the true one."

"There is no harm in giving people credit for being good."

"Yes, there is, when people are not good, which is most often the case.

It sets us wrong practically, and holds virtue cheap. If Marmaduke is a n.o.ble and warmhearted man, and Constance a lovable, innocent girl, all I can say is that it is not worth while to be n.o.ble or lovable. If amiability consists in maintaining that black is white, it is a quality anyone may acquire by telling a lie and sticking to it."

"But I dont maintain that black is white. Only it seems to me that as regards white, you are color blind. Where I see white, you see black; and----hus.h.!.+ Here is Constance."

"Yes," whispered Elinor: "she comes back quickly enough when it occurs to her that we are talking about her."

Instead of simply asking why Constance should not behave in this very natural manner if she chose to, Marian was about to defend Constance warmly by denying all motive to her return, when that event took place and stopped the discussion. Marian and Nelly spent a considerable part of their lives in bandying their likes and dislikes under the impression that they were arguing important points of character and conduct.

They knew that Constance wanted to answer Marmaduke's letter; so they alleged correspondence of their own, and left her to herself.

Lady Constance went to her brother's study, where there was a comfortable writing-table. She began to write without hesitation, and her pen gabbled rapidly until she had covered two sheets of paper, when, instead of taking a fresh sheet, she wrote across the lines already written. After signing the letter, she read it through, and added two postscripts. Then she remembered something she had forgotten to say; but there was no more room on her two sheets, and she was reluctant to use a third, which might, in a letter to France, involve extra postage. Whilst she was hesitating her brother entered.

"Am I in your way?" she said. "I shall have done in a moment."

"No, I am not going to write. By-the-bye, they tell me you had a letter from Marmaduke this morning. Has he anything particular to say?"

"Nothing very particular. He is in Paris."

"Indeed? Are you writing to him?"

"Yes," said Constance, irritated by his disparaging tone. "Why not?"

"Do as you please, of course. I am afraid he is a scamp."

"Are you? You know a great deal about him, I dare say."

"I am not much rea.s.sured by those who do know about him."

"And who may they be? The only person you know who has seen much of him is Marian, and she doesnt speak ill of people behind their backs."

"Marian takes rather a rose-colored view of everybody, Marmaduke included. You should talk to Nelly about him."

"I knew it. I knew, the minute you began to talk, who had set you on."

"I am afraid Nelly's opinion is worth more than Marians."

"_Her_ opinion! Everybody knows what her opinion is. She is bursting with jealousy of me."

"Jealousy!"

"What else? Marmaduke has never taken the least notice of her, and she is madly in love with him."

"This is quite a new light upon the affair. Constance, are you sure you are not romancing?"

"Romancing! Why, she cannot conceal her venom. She taunted me this morning in the summer-house because Marmaduke has never made me a formal proposal. It was the letter that made her do it. Ask Marian."

"I can hardly believe it: I should not have supposed, from what I have observed, that she cared about him."