CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Edward Morgan came into Prudence's life again at a time when the dulness and restriction of her home were peculiarly galling, when her spirit was in fierce revolt against the petty tyranny of Agatha's rule, supported by William's influence and strengthened by their animosity towards her, which seemed to her daily to increase and to make anything like amicable relations impossible. Before this powerful bond of opposition Mr Graynor, old and incapable of sustained effort, gave way against his volition, slowly but surely deputing his authority in domestic affairs as he had deputed his business authority to his son, and retiring more and more within himself, content, if not hara.s.sed with a knowledge of unpleasantness to leave to his family the arrangement of their affairs.

That in this way he treated his young daughter unfairly did not occur to him. He had no idea that Prudence was unhappy. Yet, had he reflected he must have recognised that it was a powerful combination arrayed against her, a combination which he himself felt unequal to opposing.

But he belonged to a past generation. When the autumn leaves cling to the tree beyond their time they hang sear and useless before the push of the new verdure: and he had hung on till it seemed that the seasons had forgotten him and time refused to detach him from the bough. He was a little weary of hanging there overlooked and forgotten while another generation ripened to decay. He saw his children entering upon their autumn, and almost forgot the time when they, like Prudence, were in the springtime of life. When one reaches the winter of life one realises life's sadness; for the hope of spring, and the contentment of summer belong to the days that are numbered. One lives necessarily in the present and looks back upon the past; the future belongs solely to youth. In Edward Morgan's love for Prudence was repeated his own middle-aged romance. His married life with his young wife had been too brief to prove its unsuitability. He only remembered that that short time had been a happy time for him. And he liked Morgan; he would be satisfied to accept him for a son-in-law. Prudence was young for him, he recognised that; but, he argued, middle-aged men frequently married young girls, and such marriages were not always unsuccessful. The middle-aged suitor seldom pauses to reflect that if a younger man appeared upon the scene his matured experience would stand him in no good stead; a girl does not often marry a man many years her senior from any happier reason than that nothing better offers. To a girl a man of forty appears elderly. This is natural. Age, like everything else, is relative in either s.e.x.

Prudence was flattered by Mr Morgan's attentions and grateful for his consideration. She did not love him. She had a very clear idea what type of man could inspire love in her. It was an entirely different type from Mr Morgan. But marriage with Mr Morgan opened a way of escape from uncongenial surroundings. If she missed this opening it was very possible that an opportunity might not occur again. She made up her mind, as Steele had known she would do, to seize it when the moment offered.

She made one final attempt, however, to gain news of Steele. One day when she was alone with Mr Morgan she summoned all her courage and inquired after Steele.

Mr Morgan showed surprise at her question, and paused a moment for reflection before he was able clearly to recall the facts about the man to whom she referred. It seemed to be a matter of astonishment to him that she should be acquainted with Steele. Steele had left Morgan Bros, a year ago, he told her. He had gone abroad, to Africa, he believed.

He revealed an uncertainty as to his movements and a lack of interest in them which exasperated Prudence.

"So many young men emigrate to the Colonies nowadays," he said. "New countries attract them. They don't settle down in England."

"There are better openings in new countries, I suppose," she said in a dispirited voice, which she strove to render indifferent. "A man with enterprise ought to get ahead in the Colonies."

"A man with enterprise possibly might get ahead," Mr Morgan allowed; "a man with capital a.s.suredly would."

"Don't brains reckon as capital in new countries?" she asked.

"Brains are an a.s.set in every country," he answered; "but credit at one's bank is the surest pa.s.sport to success anywhere. So far as I remember, Steele was unfortunate. He did not leave us under any cloud; but there was a default in his department, and he had to make good. I imagine he emigrated with only the necessary means for landing."

"Oh!" said Prudence, and regarded Mr Morgan, who was reputed to be a millionaire, with a diminution of respect. He could better have afforded to lose the money. To have allowed a man who, while responsible, was not culpable in the matter of the deficit to make good was ungenerous. "I wish you had not told me that."

He looked astonished.

"You could have borne the loss," she said.

"Business cannot be run on quixotic lines," he answered. "Besides, every man of honour accepts his responsibilities."

He was quite right; she knew that; all he said was perfectly just. But a woman seldom reasons on lines of strict justice. She would have liked Edward Morgan better had he been generous rather than just. Instead she went to bed feeling angry with him and compa.s.sionate towards Steele.

Why, she wondered, had she forbidden Steele to write? And why had he obeyed her so implicitly? He might in any case have sent her a line of farewell before sailing. She would not have cared had the whole family seen it if only she had received that small a.s.surance that he remembered.

Perhaps he did not remember. Perhaps when he left Wortheton he had put her out of his thoughts. There was no reason why he should continue to bear her in mind when circ.u.mstances had taken him out of her life and separated them so widely. There were fresh interests now, new scenes, to engage and distract his attention. The Wortheton episode had played an unimportant part in his life. Such episodes, she knew, were frequent in most men's lives, and stood for no more than they were, pleasant interludes breaking the monotony of everyday things.

Then her thoughts strayed reminiscently to that stolen interview under her window; and she recalled things Steele had said to her and the manner of their utterance; and it seemed to her by the light of those half-forgotten memories that he had acted disloyally in going out of her life so completely. He _had_ betrayed an interest in her. And he had stirred up a corresponding interest in her breast. He had no right to do that and then to pa.s.s on and forget.

Two days later Edward Morgan returned to Derbyshire. It had been his intention to propose to Prudence before returning. He had had an interview with Mr Graynor, and had ascertained that his suit was viewed favourably by her father; but Prudence herself was a little difficult during those last two days; and Mr Morgan did not feel sufficiently confident of success with her to put his happiness to the test. Her variable moods disconcerted him. It did not occur to him to seek an explanation of her decreased kindliness in anything that had pa.s.sed between them; and so he failed to trace his fall in her esteem to the information he had given her in regard to Steele. That unfortunate relation had opened up a wider gulf than he would have believed possible, as a more generous account would, while raising him in her esteem, have decreased the influence of the absent Steele. Now the balance weighed in Steele's favour; and Mr Morgan was made uncomfortably conscious of a lack of response to his tenderness from the girl he hoped to marry.

On the evening before he left he had an interview with her alone.

It was a matter for amus.e.m.e.nt with Prudence to note the frequency of these private audiences. Hitherto the family had relegated her to the background; now, with an amazing discernment for matters calling for their united supervision, they withdrew from the drawing-room, melting away with such tactful un.o.btrusiveness that Mr Morgan firmly believed in those numerous domestic obligations which engaged so much of their time, and very willingly submitted to be entertained by the sister whose accident incapacitated her from taking an active share in their doings.

On the whole he was well satisfied; and he approved of the doctor's prescription of rest as the only cure for the damaged ankle.

"I'll send you some more literature when I get back," he said, sitting facing her in the dusk, with what remained of the daylight falling on his broad strong face. "I expect the sofa will see a good deal of you for a week or so longer. The trouble of these matters is the disproportionately long time they take to mend. On the next occasion when I visit Wortheton I shall hope to see you walking about with the best."

"I should hope so," Prudence said, and laughed.

"Oh! I don't mean to absent myself for a specially long period," he said, and looked at her with the light of a steady purpose in his eyes.

"I'm wanting you to say that you will be glad to see me again. I should have liked to have heard you express some regret at my going now."

He paused, but Prudence, who was nervously playing with a flower which he had brought in from the garden for her, did not immediately reply.

She was not sure what might follow an expression of regret from her.

She did not feel regret; and she had a very definite desire in her mind to avert a direct proposal.

"I shall be very pleased to see you when you come again," she said at last.

Mr Morgan smiled faintly.

"I suppose I shall have to rest content with that," he said. He put out a hand and laid it over her hand--the hand which held the flower. "Do I seem old to you?" he asked.

Prudence looked up at him with wide surprised eyes. He was looking back at her with a steady kindly smile that made her nervous.

"Not so _very_ old," she answered; and felt her cheeks flaming as she saw the quick colour stain his face.

He sighed.

"A little fatherly, eh?" he said, the smile returning. And he wondered whether she would ever learn to her distress how cruelly youth can hurt.

"Well, I'm not young. I'm forty-two. I want you to accustom yourself to that knowledge before I come again. When I come again I shall have another lesson to teach you."

He spoke lightly; and with the lessening of his earnestness and the removal of his hand, both of which Prudence had found embarra.s.sing, she felt relieved and was able to smile back at him with something of the old frankness.

"If you teach then as kindly as you have to-day," she said, "I shall prove a dull pupil if I do not learn it readily."

"You give me hope," he said.

He scrutinised her for a moment very closely, made as though he would speak, surprised a startled apprehension in her eyes which nearly resembled fear, and thought better of it. He got up rather suddenly and walked to the fireplace and stood staring unseeingly into the empty grate.

"I'll be patient," he said. "Perhaps you will have prepared your mind a little to receive that lesson by the time I return."

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

It was the wisest thing which Edward Morgan could have done to go away and leave what he had it in his mind to say unsaid. Prudence missed him after he left, missed his kindly attentions, the quick thought for her comfort which forestalled her wishes, his pleasant companionship. He was a man who, if somewhat earnest, perhaps because of this earnestness, talked well on most subjects. He was neither brilliant nor very ready of speech. The quality Prudence liked best in him was his habit of treating her as an equal; he did not pursue the tactic of talking down to her. The latter was one of William's unamiable eccentricities, and it annoyed Prudence the more because William at his wisest was never so profound as to be beyond the comprehension of the most ordinary intelligence.

In Mr Morgan's presence William's att.i.tude towards her changed considerably; following Mr Morgan's departure the increased deference of his manner moderated slightly since no definite proposal had resulted. William suspected that his sister's chances were not so secure as he had believed. She was foolish enough, he decided, to lose this excellent opportunity of making a brilliant marriage. William was not so anxious to see his sister married as he was desirous of forming an alliance with the house of Morgan Bros. If she brought the matter off she would win his approbation and his unbounded respect. Something of what he felt on this head he managed to convey to her in an indirect manner which he considered tactful. He felt that his approval would have considerable weight with her.

"Morgan appears to have enjoyed his visit," he remarked to her; "he was sorry to go. He is an uncommonly good fellow. I like him."

"He's a kind old thing," said Prudence with a gleam of mischief in her eyes.

"Old! Nonsense!" William squared his heavy shoulders and regarded himself complacently in the overmantel. "He's a younger man than I."

"Well, yes." Prudence surveyed William's grey hairs with uncomplimentary attentiveness, surveyed his corpulent figure, and smiled. "He's forty-two. I have his own word for that."

"A man isn't old at forty-two," he said.

"He looks old though."