“_I_ think so? No, indeed! If I were you--oh, if I were you! That’s what I should like to be, a young gentleman with plenty of money and able to do whatever I pleased.”
“Oh,” he said, with a shudder, “don’t say so; you who are so much finer a thing--so much--don’t you know--it is a sort of sacrilege to talk so.”
At this she laughed with frank contempt. “That’s nonsense,” she said; “but I should not go to Oxford. I’d go into the Guards. It is they that have the best of it: almost always in London, and going everywhere. I should not marry, not for years and years!”
“Marry!” cried Walter, and blushed, which it did not occur to his companion to do.
“No, I should not marry,” said the girl; “I should have my fun, that is, if I were a gentleman. I should make the money go; I should go in for horses and all sorts of things. I should just go to the other extremity and do everything the reverse of what I have to do now. That’s because I can do so little now. Come, tell me, Mr. Penton, what should you do?”
Walter was much discomposed by this inquiry. He was disturbed altogether by the turn the conversation had taken. It was not at all what he had intended. He felt baffled and put aside out of the way; but yet there was an attraction in it, and in the arch look which was in her eyes. He felt the challenge and it moved him, notwithstanding that in his heart he was deeply disappointed that she had thrown back his confidences and not allowed herself to be drawn into his thoughts. He half understood, too, whither she wanted to lead him--into those encounters of wit in which she had so easily the mastery, in which he was so serious, pleading for her grace, and she so capricious, so full of mystery, holding him at bay. But he could not all at once, after all the experiences of the morning, begin to laugh again.
“I am stupid to-day,” he said. “I can’t think of fortune or anything else. I dare say I should do just the reverse of what you say.”
“What! marry?” she said. “Oh, silly! You should not think of that for years.”
“I should do more than think of it,” cried Walter, “if I--if you--if there was any chance--” The boy blushed again, half with the shy emotion of his years, the sudden leaping of his blood toward future wonders unknown. And then he stopped short, breathing hard. “You tempt me to say things only to mock me,” he said. “You think it is all fun; but I am in earnest, deep in earnest, and I mean what I--”