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The reproach annoyed him.
“You are behaving as such,” he said. “I am anxious to make every allowance for you, but when you talk in this wild fashion—why did you not stop me yesterday when I told you that I had given my consent to your engagement?”
“I did not know what to say—I was overcome with surprise.”
“Do you mean to tell me that he—Clifton—left you the last time he was with you before you went up the river, under the impression that you and he were no longer engaged?”
“I cannot say what his impression was—I asked him to release me on that very day.”
“What reason did you put forward for making such a request?”
“I said that—that I felt that I was doing wrong in remaining engaged to him in secret—without your consent.”
“You were quite right. But you see I have removed the cause—the legitimate cause of your self-reproach. The consequence is that you are engaged to him, if I know anything of logic and reason.”
“Oh, logic and reason! I am only a woman, God help me!”
“My dear girl, to be a woman is to be a very charming thing, if a bit unreasonable at times. You are the slaves to your nerves. And these days—what does the poet say? ‘It was the time of roses’—ah, neurosis, he would have written to-day—‘and we plucked them as we passed.’”
She had risen.
“I am going to bed,” she said. “Good-night.”
“You couldn’t do better, my dear. Good-night and God bless you! Don’t neglect the bro—by the way, I should perhaps mention to you that even if I were inclined to accept your protest now it would be too late—I should be powerless to do anything, for the announcement is already gone to the papers.”
“What—you have sent it to the papers?”
“Of course I have—that is to say, Clare has sent it.” (Julian Clare was Mr. West’s private secretary.) “It was necessary for it to appear without delay. It will increase the interest in your father—there is always a sort of reflected glory upon the father of a beautiful girl who is about to be married. We cannot fly in the face of Providence and the papers at the present moment. The present moment is critical for the house of West.”
“You are going into the Cabinet,” she said. “That represents the highest height of your ambition.”
“It is one of the peaks, at any rate,” said he smiling. “It is high enough for me. Those who cannot get to the summit of Mont Blanc must be content with the humble Monte Rosa. And feeling that your future, my child, is assured, I shall be the more content, if—ah, you are quite right. Good-night—good-night.”
She went upstairs feeling that the fight with Fate was over. What would be the use of struggling any longer against what was plainly the decree of Fate? Fate is a tough antagonist at any time, but when Fate and the newspapers are pulling together——
She went to bed without saying her prayers.
Amber Severn read the announcement in one of the papers the next morning that a marriage was arranged and would shortly take place between Mr. Ernest Clifton, fifth son of the late Constantine Clifton of The Elms, Lynnthorpe, Esq., and Josephine, only daughter of the Right Honourable J. Carew West, Under Secretary of State for the Department of Arbitration.
She gave an exclamation of surprise, and this was followed by one that suggested irritation. She was more than irritated, she felt that she had lost a friend—her dearest friend. She had always known that Josephine was somewhat reticent about her own affairs for an ideal friend; but the notion of her being in love with Mr. Clifton and carefully refraining from giving a hint to any one of the state of her heart was past all bearing.
And yet she remembered now having had once or twice during the previous six months, a suspicion that if Josephine inclined to look on any man of their acquaintance with especial favour that man was Mr. Clifton. She might have guessed but what about Pierce Winwood? What about her father’s subtle suggestions as to the possibility of Josephine’s looking with eyes of favour on Pierce Winwood? What about that Monday morning when they had come into the house together talking with guilty fluency about a reaping machine that was painted blue and delicately picked out with vermillion?
“I will never—never trust to the evidence of my own eyes again,” she cried, remembering the look of exultation on Mr. Winwood’s face upon that morning. She also made up her mind that she would never again in matters of this sort trust to the evidence of her father’s experience, even though conveyed to her in the choicest and most enigmatical language ever employed by him. Her father had shown a desire to encourage the bringing about of a match between Josephine and Pierce; and indeed he had proved his possession of some of the qualities of the fully equipped match-maker, which she took to be a cheery readiness to assume the rle of a sort of boarding-house Providence, and a complete faith in the influence of propinquity upon opposing natures.
She would never again trust to her father’s judgment. He knew too much about electricity.
She had an opportunity of telling him so, but she refrained from doing so: if he lacked judgment there was no reason for her to attempt to consolidate his views on heredity by so indiscreet an act. She pointed out the paragraph to him when he came down to breakfast but made no comment upon it. No one since the world began ever regarded an absence of comment as an indiscretion.
“But it takes my breath away,” said Sir Creighton. “Heavens! just think of it—Clifton—Ernest Clifton, the wire-puller. What can she possibly see... oh, after all... a curious coincidence, isn’t it, that this talk should be just now about her father getting a seat in the Cabinet? But I can’t for the life of me see where Clifton comes in. He has no power of that sort, whatever may be ascribed to him as an organiser in the country. He could be of no use to West, for his seat is a perfectly safe one. And we thought...”
“You did, at any rate,” said Amber.
“I did—I admit it. I thought—I hoped. It would have come out so well. I might have been able to give him a helping hand.”
“To give Mr. Winwood a helping hand?”
