‘Kind!’ he cried, with a sort of groan,--‘good to you! Then that is all I am to have by way of farewell?’
‘Mr. Renton,’ said Millicent, rousing herself up, ‘I don’t know what you think I can say. You know what you told me last time we spoke of this. You said you were disinherited. You said you had nothing to offer me. Well, then, what can I answer? It is very good of you to--care for me. I shall always feel you have done me an honour. But there is nothing to give an answer to that I know of; and, indeed, I can’t tell what else to say.’
‘Ah, if it is only that there is nothing to answer!’ cried Ben. ‘Millicent, tell me I am to work for you,--tell me that when I have changed all this,--when I have made my way in the world,--when I have something to offer,--that I am to come back to you. Tell me so,--only that I am to come!’
With a little laugh, half of natural embarrassment, half of art, Millicent glanced at, and turned away from her lover, who was now fairly on his knees before her, looking up with eager, pleading, impassioned eyes into her face. ‘That would be very like making you an offer,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘You cannot expect me to do that.’
‘But I may come?’ said Ben. He took her calm, soft hands into his, which burned and trembled. He kissed them with his quivering, passionate lips. Oh, what a fool he was! That was the uppermost thought in the mind of the beautiful creature at whose feet he thus threw himself. A man of the world, too, who ought to have seen through her,--who ought to have known that she was not the sort of woman to wait years and years on such a vague, nay, hopeless prospect. Yes, he might come if he liked. What did it matter? If he was to make his own way in the world, no doubt it would be years and years first, and by that time his feelings would have changed, of course. It was easier to pretend to yield to him, and satisfy him for the moment, than to set the truth plainly before him and make a scene. Thus Millicent reasoned, not without compassion, not without kindness, for the foolish fellow who held her hands in such a tremulous, passionate embrace. There lay the special hardness of her fate. She could have liked him had everything been as it ought to be. She was sorry for him even now; but, after all, what did it matter? It must be years and years before he could have anything to offer, and of course his feelings would have changed a dozen times before that. It was best to smooth over matters, and make him happy now. Thus Ben came off victorious from both mother and daughter,--victorious,--conqueror of all real obstacles that could stand between him and his love. So he thought.