Duchess

“ As I just now told you, I am a poor man, and poor men cannot afford such luxuries as hearts."
"Yet poor men have them," says the girl in a little low stifled tone. "And—and girls have them too!"
There is a long, long silence. To Curzon it seems as if the whole world has undergone a strange, wild upheaval. What had she meant—what? Her words! Her words meant something, but her looks, her eyes, oh, how much more they meant! And yet to listen to her—to believe—he, her guardian, a poor man, and she an heiress! Oh! no. Impossible.
"So much the worse for the poor men," says he deliberately. ”

“ Hardinge is hardly gone, before another—a far heavier—step sounds in the passage outside the professor's door. It is followed by a knock, almost insolent in its loudness and sharpness.
"What a hole you do live in," says Sir Hastings, stepping into the room, and picking his way through the books and furniture as if afraid of being tainted by them. "Bless me! what strange beings you scientists are. Rags and bones your surroundings, instead of good flesh and blood. Well, Thaddeus—hardly expected to see me here, eh?" ”

“ That downward glance condemns him in her eyes—to her it is but a token of his guilt towards her.
"They are not!" says she, with a little stamp of her foot that makes the professor jump. "You think of me as a cruel, wicked, worldly girl, who would marry anyone to gain position."
Here her fury dies away. It is overcome by something stronger. She trembles, pales, and finally bursts into a passion of tears that have no anger in them, only intense grief. ”

“ I could quite as soon imagine your having a wife," says Hardinge. He knocks the ash off his cigar, and after meditating for a moment, leans back in his chair and gives way to irrepressible mirth.
"I don't see why I shouldn't have a wife as well as another," says the professor, idly tapping his forefinger on the table near him. "She would bore me. But a great many fellows are bored."
"You have grasped one great truth if you never grasp another!" ”

“ Curzon."
"Ah!" glancing carelessly after the professor's retreating figure.
"A youngish man?"
"No, old," says Perpetua, "at least, I think—do you know," laughing, "when he's gone I sometimes think of him as being pretty young, but when he is with me, he is old—old and grave!"
"As a guardian should be, with such a pretty ward," says Mrs.
Constans, smiling. "His back looks young, however."
"And his laugh sounds young."
"Ah! he can laugh then?"
"Very seldom. Too seldom. But when he does, it is a nice laugh. But he wears spectacles, you know—and—well—oh, yes, he is old, distinctly old!" ”

“ We are friends, you will understand, she and I; capital friends, though sometimes," with a sigh, "she—she seems to disapprove of my mode of living. But we get on very well on the whole. She is a very good girl," says the professor kindly, who always thinks of Lady Baring as a little girl in short frocks in her nursery—the nursery he had occupied with her.
To hear the beautiful, courted, haughty Lady Baring, who has the best of London at her feet, called "a good girl," so tickles Mr. Hardinge, that he leans back in his chair and bursts out laughing. ”

“ Hardinge," asks Perpetua, "that he can't come here himself? Nothing serious, I hope?"
"I am your guardian," says the professor—unfortunately, with all the air of one profoundly sorry for the fact declared, "and he wishes me to tell you that he—is desirous of marrying you."
Perpetua stares at him. Whatever bitter thoughts are in her mind, she conceals them.
"He is a most thoughtful young man," says she, blandly. "And—and you're another."
"I hope I am thoughtful, if I am not young," says the professor, with dignity. Her manner puzzles him. ”

“ It is plain that she is now on her very best behavior. She smiles up at him in a very encouraging way. "And you are my guardian, aren't you?"
"Yes," says the professor, without enthusiasm. He has seated himself, not on the chair she has pointed out to him, but on a very distant lounge. He is conscious of a feeling of growing terror. This lovely child has created it, yet why, or how? Was ever guardian mastered by a ward before? A desire to escape is filling him, but he has got to do his duty to his dead friend, and this is part of it. ”

“ Constans has taken me out with her, and I am to dine with her, and go with her to a concert in the evening."
She has poured it all out, all her good news in a breath, as though sure of a sympathetic listener.
He is too good a listener. He is listening so hard, he is looking so intensely, that he forgets to speak, and Perpetua's sudden gaiety forsakes her. Is he angry? Does he think——?
"It's only a concert," says she, flushing and hesitating. "Do you think that one should not go to a concert when——"
"Yes?" questions the professor abstractedly, as she comes to a full stop. ”

“ One should be earnest."
"Should one?" Sir Hastings looks delighted expectation. "Tell me about it," says he.
"There is nothing to tell," says Perpetua, a little petulantly perhaps. This tall, thin man! what a bore he is! And yet, the other—Mr. Hardinge—well he was worse; he was a fool, anyway; he didn't understand the professor one bit! "I like Mr. Hardinge," says she suddenly.
"Happy Hardinge! But little girls like you are good to everyone, are you not? That is what makes you so lovely. You could be good to even a scapegrace, eh? A poor, sad outcast like me?" ”

“ The breakfast lying untouched upon the table tells its own tale.
"Dissipation doesn't agree with you," says Hardinge with a faint smile.
"No. I shall give it up," returns Curzon, his laugh a trifle grim.
"I was never more surprised in my life than when I saw you at your sister's last evening. I was relieved, too—sometimes it is necessary for a man to go out, and—and see how things are going on with his own eyes."
"I wonder when that would be?" asks the professor indifferently.
"When a man is a guardian," replies Hardinge promptly, and with evident meaning. ”

“ See here, Thaddeus. I have told you a little of my plans, now hear the rest. I intend to marry—an heiress, bien entendu—and it seems to me that your ward, Miss Wynter, will suit me well enough."
"And Miss Wynter, will you suit her well enough?"
"A deuced sight too well, I should say. Why, the girl is of no family to signify, whereas the Curzons—— It will a better match for her than in her wildest dreams she could have hoped for."
"Perhaps, in her wildest dreams, she hoped for a good man, and one who could honestly love her." ”

“ The professor glances keenly at the girl's downcast face, and then at Miss Majendie. The latter glance is a question.
"You hear her," says Miss Majendie coldly—she draws her shawl round her meagre shoulders, and a breath through her lean nostrils that may be heard. "Perhaps you may be able to discover her meaning."
"What is it?" asks the professor, turning to the girl, his tone anxious, uncertain. Young women with "wrongs" are unknown to him, as are all other sorts of young women for the matter of that. And this particular young woman looks a little unsafe at the present moment. ”

“ It was you who suggested the idea that, being so much older than my niece, Miss Wynter, you could therefore escort her here and there—in fact everywhere—in fact"—with awful meaning—"any where!"
"I assure you, madam," begins the professor, springing to his feet—Perpetua puts out a white hand.
"Ah! let her talk," says she. "Then you will understand."
"But men's ages, sir, are a snare and a delusion!" continues Miss Majendie, who has now mounted her hobby, and will ride it to the death. "Who can tell the age of any man in this degenerate age? ”

“ You," wilfully, "are just as bad as Aunt Jane."
The professor looks at her. His face is perplexed—distressed—and something more, but she cannot read that.
"Well, not quite perhaps," says she, relenting slightly. "But nearly. And if you don't care you will grow like her. I hate people who lecture me, and besides, I don't see why a guardian should control one's whole life, and thought, and action. A guardian," resentfully, "isn't one's conscience!"
"No. No. Thank Heaven!" says the professor, shocked. Perpetua stares at him a moment and then breaks into a queer little laugh. ”

“ It is very usual," says Hardinge. "And you are her guardian, you know, and——"
"Why not propose to her yourself?" says the professor, turning violently upon him. "Why give me this terrible task? Are you a coward, that you shrink from learning your fate except at the hands of another—another who——"
"To tell you the truth, that is it," interrupts Hardinge, simply. "I don't wonder at your indignation, but the fact is, I love her so much, that I fear to put it to the touch myself. You will help me, won't you? You see, you stand in the place of her father, Curzon. ”

“ Indeed, to-day being Wednesday in the heart of June, he may be seen sitting bolt upright in a hansom on his way to the unlovely house that holds Miss Majendie.
As he enters the dismal drawing-room, where he finds Miss Majendie and her niece, it becomes plain, even to his inexperienced brain, that there has just been a row on, somewhere.
Perpetua is sitting on a distant lounge, her small vivacious face one thunder-cloud. Miss Majendie, sitting on the hardest chair this hideous room contains, is smiling. A terrible sign. The professor pales before it. ”

“ Great Heaven! what am I to do?"
"She?" says Hardinge, who really in turn grows petrified for the moment—_only _for the moment.
"That girl! My ward! All women are demons!" says the professor bitterly, with tragic force. He pauses as if exhausted.
"Your demon is a pretty specimen of her kind," says Hardinge, a little frivolously under the circumstances it must be confessed. "Where is she now?"
"Upstairs!" with a groan. "She says she's hungry, and I haven't a thing in the house! For goodness sake think of something, Hardinge."
"Mrs. Mulcahy!" suggests Hardinge, in anything but a hopeful tone. ”

“ He looks anxiously at Hardinge. One can see that he would part with a good deal of honest coin of the realm, if his companion would only not agree with him.
"It looks like it," said Hardinge, who is rather enjoying himself. "By Jove! what a thing to happen to you, Curzon, of all men in the world. What are you going to do, eh?"
"It isn't so much that," says the professor faintly. "It is what is she going to do?"
"Next!" supplements Hardinge. "Quite so! It would be a clever fellow who would answer that, straight off. I say, Curzon, what a pretty girl she is, though. Pretty isn't the word. ”

“ August, hot and sunny, is reigning with quite a mad merriment, making the most of the days that be, knowing full well that the end of the summer is nigh. The air is stifling; up from the warm earth comes the almost overpowering perfume of the late flowers. Perpetua moving amongst the carnations and hollyhocks in her soft white cambric frock, gathers a few of the former in a languid manner to place in the bosom of her frock. ”

“ The professor's voice is cold and shocked.
"Yes. It is true. You need not deny it. You know you hate me." They are now in an angle of the hall where few people come and go, and are, for the moment, virtually alone.
"Who told you that I hated you?" asks the professor in a peremptory sort of way.
"No," says she, shaking her head, "I shall not tell you that, but I have heard it all the same."
"One hears a great many things if one is foolish enough to listen." Curzon's face is a little pale now. ”

“ You are right," says Hardinge slowly, with, however, an irrepressible stare at the professor. It is a prolonged stare. He is very fond of Curzon, though knowing absolutely nothing about him beyond the fact that he is eminently likeable; and it now strikes him as strange that this silent, awkward, ill-dressed, clever man should be the one to teach him how to behave himself. Who is Curzon? Given a better tailor, and a worse brain, he might be a reasonable-looking fellow enough, and not so old either—forty, perhaps—perhaps less. ”

“ Abuse a man dead and gone, and one, too, who had been good to him in many ways when he, the professor, was younger than he is now, and had just quarrelled with a father who was only too prone to quarrel with anyone who gave him the chance, seems but a poor thing. The professor's quarrel with his father had been caused by the young man's refusal to accept a Government appointment—obtained with some difficulty—for the very insufficient and, as it seemed to his father, iniquitous reason, that he had made up his mind to devote his life to science. ”

“ In truth the professor's mood is not a happy one. Sitting in the hansom that is taking him all too swiftly to his destination, he dwells with terror on the girl—the undesired ward—who has been thrust upon him. He has quite made up his mind about her. An Australian girl! One knows what to expect there! Health unlimited; strength tremendous; and noise—much noise.
Yes, she is sure to be a big girl. A girl with branching limbs, and a laugh you could hear a mile off. ”

“ I shall resign my guardianship; Gwendoline—Lady Baring—will accept the position. She likes you, and—you will find it hard to break her heart."
"Do you mean," says the girl, "that I have broken yours? Yours? Have I been so bad as that? Yours? I have been wilful, I know, and troublesome, but troublesome people do not break one's heart. What have I done then that yours should be broken?" She has moved closer to him. Her eyes are gazing with passionate question into his.
"Do not think of that," says the professor, unsteadily. "Do not let that trouble you. ”