Page:The Aspern Papers.djvu/247

 'That's exactly what I think, and what in the world do I wish but to help you? If she requires a mild climate we will find some lovely place in the south of England and be as happy there as the day is long.'

'So that Macarthy would have to come there to see his mother? Fancy Macarthy in the south of England—especially as happy as the day is long! He would find the day very long,' Agatha Grice continued, with the strange little laugh which expressed—or rather which disguised—the mixture of her feelings. 'He would never consent.'

'Never consent to what? Is what you mean to say that he would never consent to your marriage? I certainly never dreamed that you would have to ask him. Haven't you defended to me again and again the freedom, the independence with which American girls marry? Where is the independence when it comes to your own case?' Sir Rufus Chasemore paused a moment and then he went on with bitterness: 'Why don't you say outright that you are afraid of your brother? Miss Grice, I never dreamed that that would be your answer to an offer of everything that a man—and a man of some distinction, I may say, for it would be affectation in me to pretend that I consider myself a nonenity—can lay at the feet of a woman.'

The girl did not reply immediately; she appeared to think over intently what he had said to her, and while she did so she turned her white face and her charming serious eyes upon him. When at last she spoke it was in a very gentle, considerate tone. 'You are wrong in supposing that I am afraid of my brother. How can I be afraid of a person of whom I am so exceedingly fond?'