The Woman with One Hand, and Mr. Ely's Engagement

He certainly wished she would look down again. Her countenance was perfectly grave, but he had a horrid suspicion that there was laughter in her eyes. She murmured something to herself.

"What was that you said?" he asked, with a sudden departure from his air of ceremonious state.

"Nothing."

She looked down-and smiled. Mr. Ely felt that he was growing warm. He was not a man easily put out of countenance as a rule, but this young lady had an effect upon him which was quite unprecedented. He changed his method of attack, and from excessive deliberation passed to excessive haste.

"Miss Truscott, I am a plain business man."

"You are."

"The day before yesterday I asked you to be my wife."

"You did."

"You said you would."

"And immediately afterwards I changed my mind." She said this with her sweetest smile.

"Changed your mind! What do you mean? Do you know I spent twenty pounds on an engagement-ring?" Mr. Ely produced a little leather case from his waistcoat pocket, and from the case a ring. "Do you see that? Do you know I paid twenty pounds for that? And it might have cost me forty-five."

Taking the ring, Miss Truscott slipped it on her long, slender finger.

"What a pretty ring! How well it fits me, too. I'll buy it from you if you'll let me have it cheap."

Mr. Ely was for a moment speechless.

"Cheap! Do you think I buy engagement-rings to sell them at a profit, then?"

"I don't know. You say you are a business man."

"Say I'm a business man! I should have to be a very funny business man if I did that kind of thing."

Taking off the ring, Miss Truscott put it back into the case.

"Never mind, Mr. Ely; as a business man you know that a good investment is never thrown away. If you don't meet with a good offer for it at once it is sure to come in by and by. If you go on asking girls to marry you, possibly in time you will light on one who will not change her mind."

"Miss Truscott, I don't think you quite know what sort of man I am."

"You say you are a business man."

"But, excuse me, you don't seem to know what a business man is either. A business man is a man who sticks to his own bargains, and expects other people to stick to theirs."

"Is he, indeed. How very interesting!"

"You promised to be my wife."

"Always supposing that I did not change my mind."

"Always supposing nothing of the kind. There was no sort of supposition even hinted at. It was as plain and unequivocal a promise as was ever made by A to B."

"Don't you see, Mr. Ely, that you're placing me in a delicate position?"

"In what sort of a position do you think you're placing me?"

"Would you have me marry you-now?"

"By George, I would!"

Rising from her seat, Miss Truscott placed her two hands behind her back-in the manner in which the children do at school-and looked him boldly in the face.

"When I love another man? – when my whole heart only beats for him? – when, in a sense which you shall never understand, I am his, and he is mine?"

Mr. Ely fidgeted beneath the clear scrutiny of her wide-open eyes.

"Look here, Miss Truscott, I've told you already that I am not a man of sentiment."

"Do you call this a question of sentiment? Would you marry a woman who frankly tells you that she loathes you, and that she yearns for another man?"

"Loathes me, by gad! Nice thing, by George! Look here, Miss Truscott, you promised to be my wife-"

Mr. Ely was accentuating his words by striking together the palms of his hands, but Miss Truscott cut him short.

"Really, Mr. Ely, you are like a child. You indulge in the vainest repetitions. I promised fiddlesticks, for all I know! I don't intend to marry you, so there's an end of it."

"Don't you? We shall see!"

"We certainly shall see!"

"Miss Truscott, if you decline to fulfil the promise which you made to me-according to your own confession-I go straight from here to my solicitor and instruct him to immediately commence an action against you for breach of promise of marriage. You will find that even a woman is not allowed to play fast-and-loose exactly as she pleases."

"You threaten me! You dare to threaten me! Now I see the business man, indeed! It is damages you want to mend your broken heart-the money, not the wife. How foolish I was not to understand all that before! Can we not compromise the case, we principals? Why should all the plunder go into the lawyer's hands? Let me beg your acceptance of a ten-pound note."

Miss Truscott took out her purse.

"Ten pounds!" Mr. Ely remembered the writ which he had in the pocket of his coat. "I'll get thirty thousand pounds at least!"

"Thirty thousand pounds! What a sum am I not valued at! I am afraid, Mr. Ely, that I am not able to treat with you when you speak of such noble figures as that. You see, at present, my guardian has the charge of my pecuniary affairs. But I beg you to believe that I am glad to learn that you can find compensation even in the prospect of such a sum as that. I had feared that your wounded affections were incurable."

"Compensation! Oh, yes, I'll find compensation fast enough! And you shall find it too! That letter of yours shall be produced in court. You shall have as first rate an advertisement as ever yet a woman had. I'll give Summers cause to be proud of his wife."

"I am so pleased to hear you speak like that, because, of course, I hope he always will be proud of me, you know. I hope you will not put it down to my insufferable conceit, but I don't think he's ashamed of me, as yet. But it is quite a relief to my mind to think that we are agreed. For we are agreed, are we not?"

"Agreed! On what?"

"On the principle of compensation."

"Oh, yes, there's no doubt that we agree on that-as you will see directly I get back to town."