Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/199

Rh they seemed to see nothing in the situation but what was pleasant.

Miss Blyth’s attitude was one of frank delight. She had never known Mr. Batters personally; all she knew of him was to the disadvantage of his character. She was enraptured by the prospect of a fortune and a house. It seemed she had a lover. In her mind, fortune, house, and lover were associated in a delightful jumble. She did not appear to realise that the acceptance of the fortune, if the attached conditions were to stand, meant the practical ostracising of the lover. Nor, at the instant, did I feel called upon to go out of the way to make the whole position plain to her understanding. It would have meant the spoiling of the happiest hour she had known.

Miss Purvis enjoyed what she regarded as her friend’s good luck to the full as much as if it had been her own. It was delightful to see her. I had plucked up courage enough to observe her so long as she did not know that I was doing so. The moment she became conscious of my scrutiny, my eyes, metaphorically, sank into my boots; actually they wandered round the room, as if the apartment had been strange to me. When she proposed to become Miss Blyth’s companion in that horrible house in Camford Street my heart thumped against my ribs in such a manner that I became positively ashamed.

Was I a lawyer, the mere mechanical exponent of an accidental situation, or was I the intimate of a lifetime? I had to ask myself the question. What right had I to throw obstacles in the way, to prevent her doing her friend a service? What right had I to even hint that she might be running a risk in doing her that service? My fears might be—were—purely imaginary. So far they certainly had no foundation in fact. They resembled nothing so much as the nervous fancies of some timorous old woman. It might be ruinous to my professional reputation to breathe a