Prudence never knew how much it cost him in self-restraint in those early days of their engagement to keep under the ardour of his love for her, and school his pa.s.sionate desire to take her in his arms and kiss madly her cool unresponding lips. He was wise, this mature lover. He knew that he had to foster her kindly affection for him; that he would need to tend and cherish it a long time before he could look to see it blossom into love. But he did not despair. He believed that she would give him eventually a full and willing response.

The engagement brought unforeseen consequences in the form of affectionate and intimate letters from the different members of Mr Morgan's family. All these people were unknown to Prudence; yet they wrote to her as though the prospective relationship admitted them to terms of confidential familiarity.

Old Mrs Morgan wrote approving her son's choice, and congratulating Prudence on having won so excellent a husband. She was glad, she added, that Prudence was young; she liked young people about her. She looked forward to having Prudence on a visit, when she would instruct her in regard to Edward's likes and dislikes, the care of his health, and other matters of similar importance.

Mrs Henry Morgan's letter was gushing and insincere in tone. As a matter of fact Mr Morgan's sister-in-law was not very pleased to hear of his engagement. She had come to regard him as a confirmed bachelor, and her two sons, for whom she was very ambitious as quite certain of inheriting their uncle's immense wealth. She had mapped out a brilliant future for them in which Morgan Bros, played no part; and she considered it indelicate on Edward's side to upset her plans by marrying--at his time of life.

"You are a brave little person," ran one pa.s.sage in her letter; "a man past forty is not adaptable. But I'll give you all sorts of wrinkles how to manage him. And of course his mother will live with you. She and I don't get on."

"Of course his mother won't live with us," Prudence told herself.

But she learned later that Mrs Henry's statement was correct. Old Mrs Morgan had managed Edward's house always, and would continue to do so.

"You will love her," he a.s.sured Prudence; "and most certainly she will love you."

An invitation to spend Christmas in Derbyshire followed; but Prudence, panic-stricken at the thought of meeting these people, insisted on spending her last Christmas at home; and it was finally settled that the visit should be deferred till the spring, when Mr Morgan promised himself the pleasure of fetching her to spend a fortnight with his mother, and of bringing her home again at the finish of the visit.

There was little likelihood of seeing much of her in the interval; but she promised to write to him regularly once a week, setting aside his tentative suggestion that a daily correspondence would be welcome by frankly admitting that she would find nothing to say. He was disappointed. The ink on his own pen would not have dried from a dearth of ideas. At forty-three a man's pa.s.sion is no whit less ardent than that of a boy of twenty; but the man knows how to practise restraint.

It was this knowledge which helped Edward Morgan over the difficulties of his courtship with a girl whose heart he had yet to win, and to whom pa.s.sion was an unknown quant.i.ty.

Prudence was rather s.e.xless in those days. The realities of love and marriage were mysteries to her. Marriage meant no more than the solution of a problem that had occupied her attention on and off for years. She saw no other way of obtaining her emanc.i.p.ation. And he was very unexacting in his devotion, and patient and kind.

The kindly attentions of Mr Morgan, the cessation of general hostilities, and the patronising approval of brother William, effected a wonderful clearance in the domestic atmosphere. Prudence was once more in favour, and the indiscretions of the past were tacitly overlooked.

She discovered also that by virtue of her engagement she had achieved a new importance in Wortheton social life. People called to offer their congratulations; and the vicar talked affably of the imitative tendency of marriage, seeming to ascribe Prudence's good fortune to the example set by her sister. He informed Mr Morgan rather unnecessarily that he was rich in this world's goods.

Amid the general rejoicings Bobby alone stood aloof, critical and disapproving and altogether unimpressed with the splendour of the match.

"You don't need to marry money," he wrote. "There's more than enough of the beastly commodity in the family as it is. And Morgan! ... Of course he's all right in himself, and a good fellow; but he's more than double your age. Imagine what you would say if I wanted to marry a woman old enough to be my mother! Break it off, Prue. I'll be home shortly, and I'll stand by you."

Prudence shed a few surrept.i.tious tears over this letter, though it moved her to mirth as well; it was so characteristic of the writer.

But, save for glimpses during the holidays, Bobby had no idea of the flatness of life at Court Heatherleigh, its repression, its sneaking pose--there was no other term for it--of pious superiority which crushed the spirit and the natural honesty of those upon whom its influence was exerted. She was not marrying Mr Morgan for his wealth; she was not marrying him for love. Her reasons, when she came to a.n.a.lyse them, occurred to her singularly inadequate. She felt very doubtful as to the wisdom of the step she had taken. The idea of a triangular household, with a mother-in-law in supreme command, seemed to her rather like a repet.i.tion of the unsatisfactory home conditions. She felt that Edward Morgan owed it to her to set up a separate establishment, and even ventured to suggest this rearrangement to him. He heard her in pained surprise.

"My mother will not intrude on us," he said. "Morningside has been her home always. I could not agree to her living elsewhere."

"Couldn't _we_ live elsewhere?" Prudence insisted. "I should like a house of my own."

"You don't understand," he said, with his hands on her shoulders, and his grave eyes looking tenderly down upon her. "Home for my mother is where I am."

He stooped and kissed her as a sort of act of forgiveness for the want of consideration she had shown.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

On the morning that Edward Morgan left Wortheton it was arranged that Prudence should drive with him to the junction and see the train off.

It was never clear to Prudence with whom the idea originated; it certainly did not emanate from her own brain. She was even a little embarra.s.sed at the thought of the four-mile drive with her heavily coated and bem.u.f.fled fiance, and the prospective ordeal of standing by the door of his compartment during those exasperating, interminable minutes before the starting of the train.

She came downstairs into the hall dressed for the drive in a navy costume which accentuated the girlish slenderness of her figure to discover Mr Morgan winding his many wraps about him, and talking cheerfully with her father and sisters, who were gathered together to see him off.

He paused in the business of b.u.t.toning his coat to inquire anxiously if she were sufficiently warmly clad for the day, which was bright and cold, with a touch of December frost in the air. She replied carelessly that she did not feel cold; and Mr Graynor, with his arm about her shoulders, remarked thoughtlessly:

"Young blood, Morgan, defies the weather."

"I think Prudence should wear a fur about her throat," Agatha said. "It would look more suitable."

Mary was despatched forthwith to fetch the unwanted addition, which, when it appeared, Mr Morgan insisted on placing round her shoulders.

Prudence took her seat in the carriage, feeling oppressed with the warmth of the sable and the confined heated atmosphere of the artificially warmed brougham, with its windows carefully closed against the cold clear air. She dragged at the fur impatiently.

"I must take it off," she said. "I feel stifled."

"All right," he acquiesced, and pa.s.sed his arm round her waist in a clumsy caress. "I'll keep you warm. Comfy, eh?"

She smiled at him a little nervously.

"You are just a mountain of clothes," she said.

During the long drive Mr Morgan kept his arm about her, and held her so closely that Prudence felt suffocated. She proposed letting down the window part way; but Mr Morgan showed such alarm at the idea that she did not persist.

"You don't understand the risk," he said. "This winter travelling...

It's how people contract pneumonia, risking chills through open windows.

You don't know how to take care of yourself. It's time I took a hand at it. I'm going to take great care of you, little girl,--all my life.

Open windows!--no! This open-air craze is the cause of most of the ills of life."

Prudence laughed.

"I understood it was the cure for them," she replied. "I live in the open air--and sleep in it."

"Sleep in it!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in horrified accents.

"Well, not actually that," she said; "but with the bedroom window wide-- always."

He stared at her. He had never supposed that any one, save those undergoing the outrageous experiment of the new-fangled open-air cure, which he considered stark madness, slept with open windows in the winter. His own windows were always carefully secured and heavily curtained. Occasionally, during the very warm summer months, he allowed an inch at the top to remain open for purposes of ventilation.

"You will grow wiser as you grow older," he said, and determined that on that point anyhow he would have his own way.

It was a relief to Prudence when they arrived at the station. She walked on to the platform, declining to accompany Mr Morgan to the booking-office while he procured his ticket. She wanted to fill her lungs with fresh air before the further ordeal of final leave-taking; and she wanted for a few minutes to be rid of his kindly presence, and the necessity of responding to his lover-like advances. It was all so dull and irksome; there was only one word which occurred to her as applicable to the situation, and that was stodgy. The stodginess of it was getting on her nerves.

When finally the big over-coated figure emerged upon the platform and came towards her Prudence felt a touch of compunction because she could not return the smiling gladness of his look with eyes which expressed a like pleasure at his approach; her own gaze was critical and entirely matter-of-fact.

His train was in. She opened the door of an empty compartment and stood beside it. He joined her, waited until the porter had placed his luggage on the rack, and dismissed him handsomely; then he motioned Prudence to get into the compartment, and followed her quickly and closed the door upon themselves.

"We've just time," he said, "for a last good-bye." And took her in his arms.

She had never felt so embarra.s.sed in his presence before, perhaps because he had never before a.s.sumed so lover-like and determined an att.i.tude. He tilted back her face and kissed her lips, and continued to hold and kiss her in this extravagant manner, despite the fact that people pa.s.sed the carriage at intervals and stared in as they pa.s.sed.

Mr Morgan was indifferent to this manifest curiosity in his doings, and his broad figure blocked the middle window and screened Prudence from intrusive eyes.

"Oh!" she said, and attempted to withdraw from his embrace. "The train will be starting immediately. I had better get out."

"Shy little girl!" he returned, and laughed joyously. "You've never been very free with your kisses, Prudence; and it will be a long time before I see you again. All right! You shall get out now. One good kiss before I let you go."

He fairly hugged her. Prudence gave him a cool hasty peck on the cheek, slipped from his hold, and was out on the platform as soon as he opened the door. He closed the door and fastened it and leaned from the window to talk to her, holding her hand until the guard's flag waved the signal for her release.