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Pryme and the butler still within earshot. What was Maurice to do? He could not really listen to a whole succession of prayers, and entreaties, and piteous appeals. There was neither the time, nor was it the place, for either discussion or remonstrance. All he could do was to nod a hasty assent to her request.
Pryme and Miss Sophy Macpherson; her sister behind with Guy Miller; Beatrice, looking melancholy, with the curate in charge; and her mother last with Sir John, who had come over from Kynaston to dinner. Edwin Miller, the second son, by himself brought up the rear. There was some laughter at the expense of the three defaulters, who, of course, were supposed to have only just hurried downstairs.
There came up a pleasant confusion of sound happy voices mingling with the measured strains of the dance-music. In a sheltered corner behind the staircase, Beatrice and Herbert Pryme had settled themselves down comfortably for a chat. Lady Kynaston saw them. "Caroline is a fool!" she muttered to herself. "All the balls in the world won't get that girl married as she wishes.
Presently a door at the further end of the corridor softly opens and shuts, and Mr. Pryme looks up quickly. Beatrice Miller, looking about her a little guiltily, comes swiftly towards him along the passage. "Mamma kept me such ages!" she says, breathlessly; "I thought I should never get away." "Never mind, so long as you are here," he answers, holding her by both hands.
I have the honour of wishing you good day, sir, and I am sorry I ever took the trouble of calling upon you. It is, of course, unnecessary for you to trouble yourself concerning my case, in these altered circumstances, Mr. Pryme; I beg to decline the benefit of your legal assistance. Good afternoon."
But, listen! your place is here, for many reasons, as you will be quick enough to see. After dinner, papa took Cornelia into the library alone, and they were together for ten minutes. She came out very pale. She had been proposed for by Sir Twickenham Pryme, our Member for the borough. I have always been sure that Cornelia was born for Parliament, and he will be lucky if he wins her.
You see, I am to be offered to all the county magnates in succession." Herbert Pryme still holds her hands, and looks down with grave vexation into her face. "And how do you suppose I shall feel whilst Mr. Nethercliff is making love to you?"
We loved, sir; used to meet; How sad, and bad, and mad it was; But then, how it was sweet! Browning. Leaning against a window-frame at the end of a long corridor on the second floor, and idly looking out over the view of the wide lawns and empty flower-beds which it commands, stands Mr. Herbert Pryme, on the second morning after his arrival at Shadonake House.
Miller had not the strong instincts of caste which were inherent in his wife. She could not make him see what dreadful deed of iniquity Herbert Pryme and his daughter had perpetrated between them. "What's wrong with the young fellow?" he asked, looking up from the pile of parliamentary blue-books on the library table before him.
Away went duty, prudence, and every other laudable consideration to the winds; and Herbert Pryme straightway became insanely and blissfully oblivious of his own poverty, of Mr. Miller's wealth, and of everything else upon earth and under the sun that was not entirely and idiotically delightful and ecstatic. "You will do as I tell you?" whispers Beatrice. "Of course I will," answers her lover.
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