Part 107 (1/2)

The letter-bag lay in the hall, and Nina went down at once and deposited her letter in it; this done, she lay down on her bed, not to sleep, but to think over Donogan and his letter till daybreak.

CHAPTER Lx.x.xII

THE BREAKFAST-ROOM

'Strange house this,' said Joseph Atlee, as Nina entered the room the next morning where he sat alone at breakfast. 'Lord Kilgobbin and d.i.c.k were here a moment ago, and disappeared suddenly; Miss Kearney for an instant, and also left as abruptly; and now you have come, I most earnestly hope not to fly away in the same fas.h.i.+on.'

'No; I mean to eat my breakfast, and so far to keep you company.'

'I thank the tea-urn for my good fortune,' said he solemnly.

'A _tete-a-tete_ with Mr. Atlee is a piece of good-luck,' said Nina, as she sat down. 'Has anything occurred to call our hosts away?'

'In a house like this,' said he jocularly, 'where people are marrying or giving in marriage at every turn, what may not happen? It may be a question of the settlement, or the bridecake, or white satin ”slip”--if that's the name for it--the orange-flowers, or the choice of the best man--who knows?'

'You seem to know the whole bead-roll of wedding incidents.'

'It is a dull _repertoire_ after all, for whether the piece be melodrama, farce, genteel comedy, or harrowing tragedy, it has to be played by the same actors.'

'What would you have--marriages cannot be all alike. There must be many marriages for things besides love: for ambition, for interest, for money, for convenience.'

'Convenience is exactly the phrase I wanted and could not catch.'

'It is not the word _I_ wanted, nor do I think we mean the same thing by it.'

'What I mean is this,' said Atlee, with a firm voice, 'that when a young girl has decided in her own mind that she has had enough of that social bondage of the daughter, and cannot marry the man she would like, she will marry the man that she can.'

'And like him too,' added Nina, with a strange, dubious sort of smile.

'Yes, and like him too; for there is a curious feature in the woman's nature that, without any falsehood or disloyalty, permits her to like different people in different ways, so that the quiet, gentle, almost impa.s.sive woman might, if differently mated, have been a being of fervid temper, headstrong and pa.s.sionate. If it were not for this species of accommodation, marriage would be a worse thing than it is.'

'I never suspected you of having made a study of the subject. Since when have you devoted your attention to the theme?'

'I could answer in the words of Wilkes--since I have had the honour to know your Royal Highness; but perhaps you might be displeased with the flippancy.'

'I should think that very probable,' said she gravely.

'Don't look so serious. Remember that I did not commit myself after all.'

'I thought it was possible to discuss this problem without a personality.'

'Don't you know that, let one deal in abstractions as long as he will, he is only skirmis.h.i.+ng around special instances. It is out of what I glean from individuals I make up my generalities.'

'Am I to understand by this that I have supplied you with the material of one of these reflections?'

'You have given me the subject of many. If I were to tell you how often I have thought of you, I could not answer for the words in which I might tell it.'

'Do not tell it, then.'