Parlous Times: A Novel of Modern Diplomacy

"Nonsense, I've done nothing as yet."

"You have given me your sympathy. Is not that something? You have been a true friend to me."

"For old friendship's sake – could I do less?"

She flushed and said hurriedly.

"My father will know how to thank you properly. When I see him – " and she unburdened her heart to the Secretary, who gave her a willing ear. Together they discussed her plans for the future, her return home, her welcome; in short, a thousand and one pleasant anticipations, till Stanley declared, regretfully, that he must go.

"But you have stood already an hour," she murmured, "surely you will come in and rest."

"An hour!" he exclaimed, looking at his watch. "Impossible!"

"No," she said. "Not impossible, I also have stood."

He was overcome at his thoughtlessness, but she silenced his excuses by throwing open the gate and saying:

"Come." And he entered.

Miss Fitzgerald was seated at her ease in a West Indian chair on the lawn. A white parasol shielded her from the sun, and a novel lay unopened in her lap. As she leaned back looking up into the earnest face of a man, with a supercilious smile and a veiled fire in her blue eyes, she seemed to be at peace with herself and with the world. In reality, she was enduring the last of three most disagreeable encounters.

Her first had been with her aunt, Mrs. Roberts, who, quite justly, ascribed the occurrences which had interrupted the harmony of her house-party to the machinations of her niece.

"I invited you here at your own request," she had said, in a private interview before breakfast, in the course of which much righteous wrath was vented. "You assured me that Mr. Stanley was on the point of asking your hand in marriage, and only needed an opportunity of doing so; which I was the more willing to give, because I saw the extreme advisability of such a step. His actions have belied your words, and moreover, have made you the subject of unpleasant comment in my house, which has greatly annoyed me. I do not wish to be unkind, but you must understand that matters, for the rest of the time we are together, must run more smoothly, or I shall be obliged to suggest your returning to London."

It is hard enough to endure the faulty criticism of an elderly and misguided person, when one is in the right; but when one is in the wrong, and has hanging over one the probability, if not the certainty, of coming disclosures, which will force threats to become realities, such a state of things is unbearable, and Miss Fitzgerald partook of her morning meal feeling that fate had been more than unkind.

Immediately after breakfast she had been treated to an interview with the outraged Mr. Lambert, of which a detailed account is unnecessary, but which resulted in the unpalatable presentation of those obnoxious criticisms known as "home truths."

With all her faults, Miss Fitzgerald, like the parson, came of fighting stock, and, game to the last, she began the dangerous experiment of burning her boats behind her, by informing her hostess that she should leave to-morrow afternoon in any event, as it was not her wish to stay where she was unwelcome. Then, possessed by the spirit that has always prompted heroic deeds, the determination to do or die, she sought and found an interview with Mr. Stanley. She boldly opened the attack, by calling that young gentleman to account for his neglect of the last twenty-four hours.

"I've hardly seen so much as your shadow, Jimsy, and I've been nearly bored to death in consequence. What have you been doing with yourself?"

"Trying to find out to whom you were married."

"Ah! Have you succeeded?"

"Yes, the parson has confirmed your assertions this morning."

"Did you need his confirmation of my word?"

Stanley said nothing, and his companion, considering the silence dangerous, hastened to break it.

"If I really were to marry you," she asked, "would you desert me as you did yesterday?"

"If you treated me as you've treated me these last few days, I should probably desert you altogether."

The situation was going from bad to worse, and something must be effected or the cause was lost.

"What have I done, Jim?" she asked piteously, taking the bull by the horns, and allowing her eyes to fill with tears.

"What have you done?" he said nonchalantly, with a flippancy which, in the case of women, constituted his most dangerous weapon. "What have you done? Oh, nothing out of the common, I suppose, only, you see, unfortunately, we men are cursed with a certain, though defective, standard of morals; and the amount of – well, prevarication you've practised over this affair has shattered a number of cherished illusions."

"I wish you wouldn't wax so disgustingly moral, Jimsy. It's so easy to be moral – and it bores me. Of course, I don't like saying what's not so, any more than you do, but one must be consistent. I promised Kingsland I'd arrange the match for him, and when that old fool of a parson put obstacles in the way, and then assumed I was the bride, – I'll give you my word I never told him so – why, it offered an easy solution of the difficulty. There was nothing illegal about the marriage. I'm sure I'm not responsible for every man who makes a fool of himself, and since I'd undertaken the affair, I was bound, in common decency, to see it through."

"Do you consider 'common decency' just the word to apply to the transaction?"

"Don't pick up details and phrases in that way, Jimsy. They're unimportant – but very irritating."

"Do you think so? Details and phrases go far to make up the sum of life. Why does Colonel Darcy still remain here?"

"Why do you still persist in harping upon my friend's name?"

"Because I loathe him, Belle. If you knew his true character, you'd cut him the next time you met."

"Ignorance is the only thing that makes life tolerable."

"Nonsense."

"Jim, answer me this question. If I were your wife, would you permit me to keep up my intimacy with Colonel Darcy?"

"No."

"Then I must choose between you two?"

"Do you love me so little that there can be a question of choice?"

"You don't understand. It's easy for you to say, 'Throw him over'; the reality is a very different matter. He's my oldest friend."

"And I'm the man who has asked you to share his name and his honour. If I could prove to you that Darcy was unworthy – would you give him up, for my sake?"

"Can you prove this?"

"I'm not at liberty to say."

She smiled faintly, and thought hard. She had learned in that last speech what she most wanted to know – the measure of the Secretary's knowledge.

"Well?" he said, interrogatively.

"I don't know how to answer," she replied. "My intuition says no; my heart says – yes."

The Secretary turned cold, as a new phase of the situation presented itself to his view.

"Do you love this man?" he asked.

"Love Darcy – love him!" she cried. "I hate him more than any man in the world, and yet – "

"You're in his power?"