The papers next morning, with one accord, were almost unanimous in their praise of Honeysuckle. Will’s operetta didn’t set the Thames on fire, to be sure?—?a first work seldom does?—?but it secured such an amount of modest success as decided him to change his plans largely for the future. It was certain, now, that he might take himself seriously as a musical purveyor. So he began to drop off to some extent from the hack work of journalism, and devote his energies in earnest to his new task in life as a playwright and composer. Rue had nothing to pay for her guarantee of Honeysuckle; on the contrary, Will received a very solid sum for his royalties on the run through the remainder of that season. He never knew, indeed, how much he had been indebted to the pretty American’s not wholly disinterested act of kindness; for Mr Blades kept his word; and, in spite of what he said, Rue’s timely intervention had decided him not a little in accepting that first piece by an unknown author.

Thus, during the next few years, as things turned out, Will’s position and prospects improved very rapidly. He was regarded as one of our most rising composers; critics spoke of him as the sole representative and restorer of the serious English poetical opera. Monetary troubles no longer oppressed his soul; he had leisure to write?—?and to write, if he would, the thing that pleased him. His position was secured?—?so much so, indeed, that judicious mammas gave him frequent invitations to their gayest At Homes and garden parties. But he successfully avoided all snares so set for him. Many people expressed no little surprise that so nice a young man?—?and a poet to boot?—?with a position like his, and such excellent Principles, should refrain from marriage. Society expects that every man will do his duty; it intends him to marry as soon as he has means to relieve it becomingly of one among its many superfluous daughters. But, in spite of Society, Will still remained single, and met all the casual feelers of interested acquaintances as to the reasons which induced him so to shirk his duty as a British citizen with a quiet smile of self-contained resolution.

Rue came to London now for each succeeding season. Will was much at her house, and a very real friendship existed between them. Busybodies wondered, indeed, that those two young people, who were so thick together, didn’t stop scandal’s mouth by marrying as they ought to do. The busybodies could see no just cause or impediment why they should not at once be joined together in holy matrimony. The young woman was rich; the young man was a genius. She was “mad for him,” every one said, in every one’s usual exaggerated phraseology; and as for him, though perhaps he wasn’t quite so wildly in love, yet he liked her so well, and was so often in her company, that it would surely be better to avoid whispers at once by marrying her offhand, like the earl in the “Bab Ballads,” “quite reg’lar, at St George’s!” The busybodies were surprised he didn’t see it so himself; it really was almost somebody’s duty, they thought, to suggest the idea to him. But perhaps Mrs Palmer’s money was strictly tied up; in which case, of course?—?Society broke off short, and shrugged its sapient shoulders.

To some extent, in fact, Will agreed with them himself. He almost fancied he would have proposed to Rue?—?if he wasn’t so fond of her. As he sat with her one evening by the drawing-room fire at Hans Place, before the lights were turned on, during blind-man’s holiday, he said to her suddenly, after a long, deep pause, “I daresay, Rue, you sometimes wonder why it is I’ve never tried to ask you to marry me.”

Rue gave a little start of half-tremulous surprise. He could see how the colour mounted fast to her cheek by the glow of the firelight. She gave a faint gasp as she answered candidly, with American frankness, “Well, to tell you the truth, Will, I’ve fancied once or twice you were just going to do it.”

Will looked across at her kindly. She was very charming. “I won’t be cruel enough, Rue,” he said, leaning forward to her like a brother, “to ask you what answer you meant to give, if I’d done as you expected. I hope you won’t think me conceited if I say I half believe I know it already. And that’s just why I want to tell you now the reason that has prevented me from ever asking you. If your nature were a little less deep, and a little less womanly than it really is, I might have asked you long ago. But, Rue, you know?—?I feel sure you know?—?how deeply I loved that other woman. I love her still, and I won’t pretend to deny it. I’ve waited and wondered whether in time her image might fade out of my heart; but it never has faded. She’s another man’s wife, and probably I shall never see her again; yet I love her as dearly and regret her as much as I did on the day when I first heard she’d thrown herself away for life upon Andreas Hausberger.”

“I’ve felt sure you did,” Rue answered, with downcast eyes. “I’ve felt it, Will?—?and for that very reason, I’ve wondered all the less you didn’t ask me.”

Will looked across at her again. She was beautiful as she sat there with the glow of the fire on her pensive features. “Dear Rue,” he said, softly, “you and I are no mere children. We know our own minds. We’re grown man and woman. We can venture to talk freely to one another of these things, without the foolish, childish nonsense of false shame or false blushes. In spite of Linnet, I’d have asked you long ago to be my wife?—?if I hadn’t respected and admired you so deeply. But I feel you’re not a woman who could ever put up with half a man’s heart, or half a man’s confidence; and half my heart is all I could give you. I love Linnet still, and I shall always love her. I never shall cease to feel an undying regret that I didn’t marry her, instead of that fellow Hausberger. Now, there are women not a few I might still have asked to marry me, in spite of that regret; but you’re not one of them. I love you better than I ever have loved anyone else on this earth?—?anyone else, but Linnet; and, therefore, I don’t ask you to marry a man who could give you a second place only in his affections.”

The tears stood dim in Rue’s swimming eyes. She looked at him steadily, and let them trickle one by one down her cheeks, unheeded. “Dear Will,” she answered him back, with equal frankness, “it was kind of you to speak, and I’m glad you’ve spoken. It’ll make our relations all the easier in future! I guessed how you felt; I guessed it all long ago; but I’m glad, all the same, to have heard from your own lips the actual facts of it. And, Will, you quite rightly interpret my feelings. I’m an American at heart, and, you know, we Americans are very exacting in matters of affection. Some savage strain of monopoly exists in us still. I can’t help it. I acknowledge it. I won’t deny to you”?—?and she stretched out her hand quite frankly, and let him hold it in his own for a few brief moments?—?“I won’t deny that I’m very very fond indeed of you. If you could have given me your whole heart, I would have accepted it gratefully. I admired you with a deep admiration from the very first day I ever met you. I loved you from the time we sat together on the Lanser Kopf that afternoon at Innsbruck. I’m not ashamed to tell you so?—?nay, rather, dear, I’m proud of it; for, Will, you’re a man any woman might be proud to waste her love upon. But much as I love you, much as I admire you, I never could accept you if you feel like that. As an American born, with my monopolist instincts, I must have a whole man to myself all alone?—?or I won’t have any of him.”

“I knew it,” Will answered, caressing her hand with his fingers, and bending over it chivalrously. “And that’s why I never have ventured to ask you. But I’ve loved you all the same, Rue?—?as one loves the woman who stands best of all ... save one ... in one’s affections.”

Rue withdrew her hand gently. Her tears were falling faster. “Well, now,” she said, with a quiet sigh, “we can be friends in future?—?all the better, I hope, for this little explanation. I’m rich, of course, Will; and a great many men, circumstanced as you were, would have been glad to marry me for the sake of my money. I liked you all the more, I like you the more to-day, in that that has never counted for one moment with you. If you’d been a mercenary man, you’d have dissembled and pretended; you need never have let me see how much you loved that girl; or, if you had, you might have led me to suppose you had gradually forgotten her.... Dear friend”?—?and she turned to him once more with a sudden burst of uncontrollable feeling?—?“we are man and woman, as you say, not boy and girl; so why should I be ashamed to open my whole heart to you? You’ve told me the truth, like a man; why shouldn’t I tell you the truth, in return, like a woman? I will. I can’t help it. I have waited and watched and thought often to myself, ‘In time, he must surely, surely get over it. He must cease to love her; he can never really have loved her so much as he imagines; he must turn at last to me, when he forgets all about her.’ So I waited and watched, and, month after month, I thought at last you must surely begin to forget her. But, month after month, I have seen you loved her still; and while you loved her still, ... Will, Will, dear Will, I didn’t want you to ask me.”

Will seized her hand once more, and kissed it tenderly. “Oh, how good you are!” he cried, in a very melting voice. “Rue, do you know, when you talk like that, you make me love you!”

“But not better than her?” Rue murmured, softly.

Will couldn’t lie to her. “No; not better than her,” he answered slowly, in a very low voice. “If it were otherwise, I’d have asked you this very minute, dear sister.”

Rue rose and faced him. The firelight flickered red on her soft white dress; he could see by its bright glow the tears still trickling slow down those full round cheeks of hers. “After this, Will, I must go,” she said. “Don’t come again to-morrow. Next week, you may call if you like, some afternoon, casually; but for Heaven’s sake, please, don’t refer to this interview. I have only one thing to say, and when I’ve said it, I must run from you. Remember, I’m a woman; my pride is fighting hard against my love to-night?—?and, if I let love win, I should for ever despise myself. As long as you live, don’t speak to me of this matter again, unless you speak to say, ‘Rue, Rue, I’ve forgotten her.’ If ever that day comes?—?” and she flushed rosy red?—?“you have my answer already; you know you can claim me.”

She moved over to the door, with hurried step and beating heart, hardly able to trust herself. With a true sense of delicacy, Will abstained from opening it. He stood on the hearth-rug, irresolute, and just watched her depart; he felt, in the circumstances, that course was the more respectful.

With her fingers on the handle, Rue paused, and looked round again. “I wouldn’t have said so much, even now,” she faltered, “if it weren’t for this?—?that I feel you’re the one man I’ve ever met in my life to whom the question of my money was as dust in the balance. You speak the truth, and I know I can trust you. If ever you can say to me, ‘I love you better now, Rue, than I ever loved anyone,’ I am yours: then, take me! But till that day comes, if come it ever does, let us only be friends. Never speak to me again, for Heaven’s sake, never speak, as we have spoken this evening.”

She opened the door and passed out, all tremulous. Will waited a moment, and then, with a throbbing heart, went slowly down the stairs. As he did so, something moist fell suddenly on his hand that grasped the bannister. To his immense surprise, he found it was a tear from his own eyelids?—?for he too was crying. Poet that he was, he felt more than half-inclined, while he stood there, hesitating, to rush after her as she went, and seize her in his strong arms, and cover her with warm kisses that very minute. For a poet is a man even more than the rest of us. But could he tell her with truth he had quite forgotten Linnet? Oh, no, no, no; Linnet’s image on his heart remained graven, even then, quite as deeply as ever. We men are built so.

CHAPTER XXVII