Of course, I love my family, Yanna, just the same as I ever did. My love for you is quite independent of that love. I have been practically the head of the house for many years, and to lose me is, therefore, like losing the head of the house.
Hardly so, Harry. I think Mr. Filmer is quite able to take care of his familys interests, if it should be necessary for him to do so. Father said he never met a man at once so cautious and so honorable in business.
In a matter of buying and selling, father is more than equal to his circumstances. I am speaking of our social life. In society, he is a perfect child; in fact, we continually have to shield his mistakes behind his 68 learning. It is for this reason, my own sweet Yanna, that mother thinks we ought to keep our engagement secret.
Our engagement secret! Your mother thinks it! Did you ask Mrs. Filmers permission to offer yourself to me? As she spoke, she gently withdrew from his embrace and looked with a steady countenance at him. Harry was like a man between two fires; his face burned, he felt almost irritable. Why couldnt Yanna take what he had to offer, and be content?
Mother lifted a book in my room, he said, and a copy of the letter I sent you fell out of it.
And she read one of your letters? I am glad you have told me. I certainly shall not write to you, Harry. I withdraw my promise.
Oh, nonsense, Yanna! It fell out of the book, and she looked at it; after that, any woman would have gone on looking at it.
Very few women would have gone on looking at it.
Mothers, I mean. Mothers feel they have a right, you know. I ought not to have left it there. It was my fault; but the whole house has been in such a miserable confusion, with the packing and the ball; and it has been Harry here, and Harry there, and the truth is, mother called me while I was writing, and she was in a great hurry, and I slipped the letter into the book, and when I got back I had forgotten where I put it. I looked everywhere, and as there was a fire burning on the hearth, I concluded that I had burnt it.
Which you ought to have done.
Yes; but then, Yanna, mother had to know.
I wish I had known first. What did she say?
She thought we ought, for Roses sake, to put off our marriage and keep our engagement secret.
Yes. Why for Roses sake?
It sounds egotistical to tell you, Yanna; but mother says that Rose is asked out a great deal more for my sake than for her own, and as she has made expensive preparations for the season, she wants Rose to have the full benefit of them; that is only natural. However, she thinks it impossible, if it is known that I am engaged.
The whole affair is humiliating, Harry; but I hear father coming, and you had better speak to him. He will know what I ought to do under the circumstances.
I would rather see him to-morrow. I want to talk to my mother again to collect my thoughts to explain myself better to you, dearest.
But Peter entered as he was speaking, and Yanna for a moment made no attempt to alter the significant position of Harry towards herself; for he was holding her hand, while his whole attitude was that of an imploring lover.
Yanna rose and left the room, as her father came forward. Well, sir? said Peter, not unkindly, but with an interrogative emphasis Harry could not pretend to ignore. He rose and offered his hand to Peter. I have been telling Yanna that I love her, he said, and she has promised to be my wife. The young mans hand lay in Peters hand as he made this confession, and Peter led him to the fireside.
Sit down, sir. I have something to say to you; and as you see, I am very wet. The storm was driving in my face. Then Harry looked outward, and saw the empty lawn blinded with rain, and the gray hills and the gray clouds meeting.