'I don't suppose you can do anything;—but I thought I would come over and speak to you. I don't suppose I've any chance?' He had seated himself far back on a sofa, and was holding his hat between his knees, with his eyes fixed on the ground; but as he spoke the last words he looked round into her face with an anxious inquiring glance which went direct to her heart.
'What can I say, Mr. Orme?'
'Ah, no. Of course nothing. Good-bye, Lady Staveley. I might as well go. I know that I was a fool for coming here. I knew it as I was coming. Indeed I hardly meant to come in when I found myself at the gate.'
'But you must not go from us like that.'
'I must though. Do you think that I could go in and see her? If I did I should make such a fool of myself that I could never again hold up my head. And I am a fool. I ought to have known that a fellow like me could have no chance with her. I could knock my own head off, if I only knew how, for having made such an ass of myself.'
'No one here thinks so of you, Mr. Orme.'
'No one here thinks what?'
'That it was—unreasonable in you to propose to Madeline. We all know that you did her much honour.'
'Psha!' said he, turning away from her.
'Ah! but you must listen to me. That is what we all think—Madeline herself, and I, and her father. No one who knows you could think otherwise. We all like you, and know how good and excellent you are. And as to worldly station, of course you stand above her.'
'Psha!' he said again angrily. How could any one presume to talk of the worldly station of his goddess? For just then Madeline Staveley to him was a goddess!
'That is what we think, indeed, Mr. Orme. As for myself, had my girl come to me telling me that you had proposed to her, and telling me also that—that—that she felt that she might probably like you, I should have been very happy to hear it.' And Lady Staveley as she spoke, put out her hand to him.
'But what did she say?' asked Peregrine, altogether disregarding the hand.
'Ah, she did not say that. She told me that she had declined the honour that you had offered her;—that she did not regard you as she must regard the man to whom she would pledge her heart.'
'But did she say that she could never love me?' And now as he asked the question he stood up again, looking down with all his eyes into Lady Staveley's face,—that face which would have been so friendly to him, so kind and so encouraging, had it been possible.
'Never is a long word, Mr. Orme.'
