"I had noticed that she was much changed," Mr. Wentworth declared, in a tone whose unexpressive, unimpassioned quality appeared to Felix to reveal a profundity of opposition. "It may be that she is only becoming what you call a charming woman."
"Gertrude, at heart, is so earnest, so true," said Charlotte, very softly, fastening her eyes upon her father.
"I delight to hear you praise her!" cried Felix.
"She has a very peculiar temperament," said Mr. Wentworth.
"Eh, even that is praise!" Felix rejoined. "I know I am not the man you might have looked for. I have no position and no fortune; I can give Gertrude no place in the world.
A place in the world--that 's what she ought to have; that would bring her out."
"A place to do her duty!" remarked Mr. Wentworth.
"Ah, how charmingly she does it--her duty!" Felix exclaimed, with a radiant face. "What an exquisite conception she has of it! But she comes honestly by that, dear uncle."
Mr. Wentworth and Charlotte both looked at him as if they were watching a greyhound doubling. "Of course with me she will hide her light under a bushel," he continued; "I being the bushel!
Now I know you like me--you have certainly proved it.
But you think I am frivolous and penniless and shabby!
Granted--granted--a thousand times granted.
I have been a loose fish--a fiddler, a painter, an actor.
But there is this to be said: In the first place, I fancy you exaggerate; you lend me qualities I have n't had.
I have been a Bohemian--yes; but in Bohemia I always passed for a gentleman. I wish you could see some of my old camarades--they would tell you! It was the liberty I liked, but not the opportunities! My sins were all peccadilloes;
I always respected my neighbor's property--my neighbor's wife.
Do you see, dear uncle?" Mr. Wentworth ought to have seen; his cold blue eyes were intently fixed. "And then, c'est fini!
It 's all over. Je me range. I have settled down to a jog-trot. I find I can earn my living--a very fair one--by going about the world and painting bad portraits. It 's not a glorious profession, but it is a perfectly respectable one.
You won't deny that, eh? Going about the world, I say?
I must not deny that, for that I am afraid I shall always do--in quest of agreeable sitters. When I say agreeable, I mean susceptible of delicate flattery and prompt of payment.
Gertrude declares she is willing to share my wanderings and help to pose my models. She even thinks it will be charming; and that brings me to my third point. Gertrude likes me.
Encourage her a little and she will tell you so."
Felix's tongue obviously moved much faster than the imagination of his auditors; his eloquence, like the rocking of a boat in a deep, smooth lake, made long eddies of silence.
And he seemed to be pleading and chattering still, with his brightly eager smile, his uplifted eyebrows, his expressive mouth, after he had ceased speaking, and while, with his glance quickly turning from the father to the daughter, he sat waiting for the effect of his appeal. "It is not your want of means," said Mr. Wentworth, after a period of severe reticence.
"Now it 's delightful of you to say that! Only don't say it 's my want of character. Because I have a character--
I assure you I have; a small one, a little slip of a thing, but still something tangible."
"Ought you not to tell Felix that it is Mr. Brand, father?"
Charlotte asked, with infinite mildness.
"It is not only Mr. Brand," Mr. Wentworth solemnly declared.
And he looked at his knee for a long time. "It is difficult to explain," he said. He wished, evidently, to be very just.
"It rests on moral grounds, as Mr. Brand says.
It is the question whether it is the best thing for Gertrude."
"What is better--what is better, dear uncle?" Felix rejoined urgently, rising in his urgency and standing before Mr. Wentworth.
His uncle had been looking at his knee; but when Felix moved he transferred his gaze to the handle of the door which faced him.
"It is usually a fairly good thing for a girl to marry the man she loves!" cried Felix.
While he spoke, Mr. Wentworth saw the handle of the door begin to turn; the door opened and remained slightly ajar, until Felix had delivered himself of the cheerful axiom just quoted.
Then it opened altogether and Gertrude stood there.
She looked excited; there was a spark in her sweet, dull eyes.
She came in slowly, but with an air of resolution, and, closing the door softly, looked round at the three persons present.
Felix went to her with tender gallantry, holding out his hand, and Charlotte made a place for her on the sofa.
But Gertrude put her hands behind her and made no motion to sit down.
"We are talking of you!" said Felix.
"I know it," she answered. "That 's why I came." And she fastened her eyes on her father, who returned her gaze very fixedly.
In his own cold blue eyes there was a kind of pleading, reasoning light.
"It is better you should be present," said Mr. Wentworth.
"We are discussing your future."
"Why discuss it?" asked Gertrude. "Leave it to me."
"That is, to me!" cried Felix.
"I leave it, in the last resort, to a greater wisdom than ours," said the old man.
Felix rubbed his forehead gently. "But en attendant the last resort, your father lacks confidence," he said to Gertrude.
"Have n't you confidence in Felix?" Gertrude was frowning; there was something about her that her father and Charlotte had never seen.
Charlotte got up and came to her, as if to put her arm round her; but suddenly, she seemed afraid to touch her.
Mr. Wentworth, however, was not afraid. "I have had more confidence in Felix than in you," he said.
"Yes, you have never had confidence in me--never, never!
I don't know why."
"Oh sister, sister!" murmured Charlotte.
"You have always needed advice," Mr. Wentworth declared.
"You have had a difficult temperament."
"Why do you call it difficult? It might have been easy, if you had allowed it. You would n't let me be natural.
I don't know what you wanted to make of me. Mr. Brand was the worst."
