is now at one of the village inns, waiting to see him. Go to Mr. George Uploft; he knows the family. Yes, the Countess has turned your head, of course; but she has schemed and schemed, and told such stories—God forgive her!”—
The girl had to veil her eyes in a spasm of angry weeping.
“Oh, come! Juley!” murmured her killing cousin. Harry boasted an extraordinary weakness at the sight of feminine tears. “I say! Juley! you know if you begin crying I’m done for, and it isn’t fair.”
He dropped his arm on her waist to console her, and generously declared to her that he always had been very fond of her. These scenes were not foreign to the youth. Her fits of crying, from which she would burst in a frenzy of contempt at him, had made Harry say stronger things; and the assurances of profound affection uttered in a most languid voice will sting the hearts of women.
Harry still went on with his declarations, heating them rapidly, so as to bring on himself the usual outburst and check. She was longer in coming to it this time, and he had a horrid fear, that instead of dismissing him fiercely, and so annulling his words, the strange little person was going to be soft, and hold him to them. There were her tears, however, which she could not stop.
“Well, then, Juley, look. I do, upon my honour, yes—there, don’t cry any more—I do love you.”
Harry held his breath in awful suspense. Juliana quietly disengaged her waist, and looking at him, said, “Poor Harry! You need not lie any more to please me.”
Such was Harry’s astonishment, that he exclaimed, “It isn’t a lie! I say, I do love you.” And for an instant he thought and hoped that he did love her.
“Well, then, Harry, I don’t love you,” said Juliana; which at once revealed to our friend that he had been utterly mistaken in his own emotions. Nevertheless, his vanity was hurt when he saw she was sincere, and he listened to her, a moody being. This may account for his excessive wrath at Evan Harrington after Juliana had given him proofs of the truth of what she said.
But the Countess was Harrington’s sister! The image of the Countess swam before him. Was it possible? Harry went about asking everybody he met. The initiated were discreet; those who had the whispers were open. A bare truth is not so convincing as one that discretion confirms. Harry found the detestable news perfectly true.
“Stop it by all means if you can,” said his father.
“Yes, try a fall with Rose,” said his mother.
“And I must sit down to dinner to day with a confounded fellow, the son of a tailor, who’s had the impudence to make love to my sister!” cried Harry. “I’m determined to kick him out of the house!—half.”
“To what is the modification of your determination due?” Lady Jocelyn inquired, probably suspecting the sweet and gracious person who divided Harry’s mind.
Her ladyship treated her children as she did mankind generally, from her intellectual eminence. Harry was compelled to fly from her cruel shafts. He found comfort with his Aunt Shorne, as the wicked called that honourable lady. Mrs. Shorne as much as told Harry that he was the head of the house, and must take up the matter summarily. It was expected of him. Now was the time for him to show his manhood.
Harry could think of but one way to do that.
“Yes, and if I do—all up with the old lady,” he said, and had to explain that his grandmama Bonner would never leave a penny to a fellow who had fought a duel.
“A duel!” said Mrs. Shorne. “No, there are other ways. Insist upon his renouncing her. And Rose—treat her with a high hand, as becomes you. Your mother is incorrigible, and as for your father, one knows him of old. This devolves upon you. Our family honour is in your hands, Harry.”
Considering Harry’s reputation, the family honour must have got low. Harry, of course, was not disposed to think so. He discovered a great deal of unused pride within him, for which he had hitherto not found an agreeable vent. He vowed to his aunt that he would not suffer the disgrace, and while still that blandishing olive-hued visage swam before his eyes, he pledged his word to Mrs. Shorne that he would come to an understanding with Harrington that night.
“Quietly,” said she. “No scandal, pray.”
“Oh, never mind how I do it,” returned Harry, manfully. “How am I to do it, then?” he added, suddenly remembering his debt to Evan.
Mrs. Shorne instructed him how to do it quietly, and without fear of scandal. The miserable champion replied that it was very well for her to tell him to say this and that, but—and she thought him demented—he must, previous to addressing Harrington in those terms, have money.
“Money!” echoed the lady. “Money!”
“Yes, money!” he iterated doggedly, and she learnt that he had borrowed a sum of Harrington, and the amount of the sum.
It was a disastrous plight, for Mrs. Shorne was penniless.
She cited Ferdinand Laxley as a likely lender.
“Oh, I’m deep with him already,” said Harry, in apparent dejection.
“How dreadful are these everlasting borrowings of yours!” exclaimed his aunt, unaware of a trifling incongruity in her sentiments. “You must speak to him without—pay him by and by. We must scrape the money together. I will write to your grandfather.”
“Yes; speak to him! How can I when I owe him? I can’t tell a fellow he’s a blackguard when I owe him, and I can’t speak any other way. I ain’t a diplomatist. Dashed if I know what to do!”
“Juliana,” murmured his aunt.
“Can’t ask her, you know.”
Mrs. Shorne combatted the one prominent reason for the objection: but there were two. Harry believed that he had exhausted Juliana’s treasury. Reproaching him further for his wastefulness, Mrs. Shorne promised him the money should be got, by hook or by crook, next day.
