‘EDWARD!’ cried Constance, giving her cousin her hand, ‘is this prudent? You ride down Park Lane as if you were riding after hounds, your unhappy attendant—poor girl!—trying in vain to keep up with you; and then you descend openly, and in the eyes of all, alone, at my door—the door of your unmarried cousin. Consider me, my dear Edward, if you are careless about your own reputation. Do you think I have no enemies? Do you think young Lord Chester can go anywhere without being seen and reported? Do you think all women have kind hearts and pleasant tongues?’

The young man laughed, but a little bitterly.

‘My reputation, Constance, may just as well be lost as kept. What do I care for my reputation?’

At these terrible words Constance looked at him in alarm.

He was worth looking at, if only as a model, being six feet high, two-and-twenty years of age, strongly built, with crisp, curly brown hair, the shoulders of a Hercules, and the face of an Apollo. But to-day his face was clouded, and as he spoke he clenched his fist.

‘What has happened now, Edward?’ asked his cousin. ‘Anything important? The new groom?’

‘The new groom has a seat like a sack, is afraid to gallop, and can’t jump. As for her nerve, she’s got none. My stable-boy Jack would be worth ten of her. But if a man cannot be allowed—for the sake of his precious reputation—to ride without a girl trailing at his heels, why, I suppose there is no more to be said. No, Constance; it is worse than the new groom.’

‘Edward, you are too masterful,’ said his cousin, gravely. ‘One cannot, even if he be Earl of Chester, fly in the face of all the convenances. Rules are made to protect the weak for their own sake; the strong obey them for the sake of the weak. You are strong; be therefore considerate. Suppose all young men were allowed to run about alone?’

The Professor shook her head gravely.

‘It would be a return,’ she said, ‘to the practice of the ancients.’

‘The barbarous practice of the ancients,’ added Constance.

‘The grooms might at least be taught how to ride,’ grumbled the young man.

‘But about this disaster, Edward; is it the postponement of a cricket match, the failure of a tennis game——’

‘Constance,’ he interrupted, ‘I should have thought you capable of believing that I should not worry you at such a moment with trifles. I have got the most serious news for you—things for which I want your help and your sympathy.’

Constance turned pale. What could he have to tell her except one thing—the one thing which she had been dreading for two or three years?

Edward, Earl of Chester in his own right, held his title by a tenure unique in the peerage. For four generations the Countesses of Chester had borne their husbands one child only, and that a son; for four generations the Earls of Chester had married ladies of good family, certainly, but of lower rank, so that the title remained. He represented, by lineal descent through the male line, the ancient Royal House; and though there were not wanting ladies descended through the female line from old Kings of England, by this extraordinary accident he possessed the old royal descent, which was more coveted than any other in the long lists of the Red Book. It was objected that its honours were half shorn by being transmitted through so many males; but there were plenty to whisper that, according to ancient custom, the young Earl would be none other than the King of England. So long a line of only children could not but result in careful nursing of the estate, which was held in trust and ward by one Countess after another, until now it was one of the greatest in the country; and though there were a few peeresses whose acres exceeded those of the Earl of Chester, there was no young man in the matrimonial market to be compared with him. His hand was at the disposal—subject, of course, to his own agreement, which was taken for granted—of the Chancellor, who, up to the present time, had made no sign.

Young, handsome, the holder of a splendid title, the owner of a splendid rent-roll, said to be of amiable disposition, known to be proud of his descent—could there be a husband more desirable? Was it to be wondered at if every unmarried woman in a certain rank of life, whether maid or widow, dreamed of marrying the Earl of Chester, and made pictures in her own mind of herself as the Countess, sitting in the House, taking precedence as PremiÈre, after the Duchesses, holding office, ruling departments, making eloquent speeches, followed and reported by the society papers, giving great entertainments, actually being and doing what other women can only envy and sigh for?

It was whispered that Lady Carlyon would ask her cousin’s hand; it was also whispered that the Chancellor (now a permanent officer of the State) would never grant her request on account of her politics; it was also whispered that a certain widow, advanced in years, of the highest rank, had been observed to pay particular attention to the young Earl in society and in the field. This report, however, was received with caution, and was not generally believed.

‘Serious news!’ Constance for a moment looked very pale. The Professor glanced at her with concern and even pity. ‘Serious news!’ She was going to add, ‘Who is it?’ but stopped in time. ‘What is it?’ she said instead.

‘You have not yet heard, then,’ the Earl replied, ‘of the great honour done to me and to my house?’

Constance shook her head. She knew now that her worst fears were going to be realised.

‘Tell me quickly, Edward.’

‘No less a person than her Grace the Duchess of Dunstanburgh has offered me, through the Chancellor, the support and honour of her hand.’

Constance started. This was the worst, indeed. The Duchess of Dunstanburgh! Sixty-five years of age; already thrice a widow; the Duchess of Dunstanburgh! She could not speak.

‘Have you nothing to say, Constance?’ asked the young man. ‘Do you not envy me my happy lot? My bride is not young to be sure, but she is a Duchess; the old Earldom will be lost in the new Duchy. She has buried three husbands already; one may look forward with joy to lying beside them in her gorgeous mausoleum. Her country house is finer than mine, but it is not so old. She is of rank so exalted that one need not inquire into her temper, which is said to be evil; nor into the little faults, such as jealousy, suspicion, meanness, greed, and avarice, with which the wicked world credits her.’

‘Edward! Edward!’ cried his cousin.

‘Then, again, one’s religion will be so beautifully brought into play. We are required to obey—that is the first thing taught in the Church catechism; all women are set in authority over us. I must therefore obey the Chancellor.’

His hearers were silent.

‘Again, what says the text?—“It is man’s chiefest honour to be chosen: his highest duty to give, wherever bidden, his love, his devotion, and his loyalty.”’

The Professor nodded her head gravely.

‘What martyrs of religion would ask for a more noble opportunity,’ he asked, ‘than to marry this old woman?’

‘Edward!’ Constance could only warn. She sees no way to advise. ‘Do not scoff.’

‘Let us face the position,’ said the Professor. ‘The Chancellor has gone through the form of asking your consent to this marriage. When?’

‘Last night.’

‘And when do you see her?’

‘I am to see her ladyship this very morning.’

‘To inform her of your acquiescence. Yes; it is the usual form. The time is very short.’

‘My acquiescence?’ asked the Earl. ‘We shall see about that presently.’

‘Patience, my lord!’ The Professor was thinking what to advise for the best. ‘Patience! Let us have no sudden and violent resolves. We may get time. Ay—time will be our best friend. Remember that the Chancellor must be obeyed. She may, for the sake of courtesy, go through the form of proposing a suitable alliance for your consideration, but her proposition is her order, which you must obey. Otherwise it is contempt of court, and the penalty——’

‘I know it,’ said the Earl, ‘already. It is imprisonment.’

‘Such contempt would be punished by imprisonment for life. Imprisonment, hopeless.’

‘Nay,’ he replied. ‘Not hopeless, because one could always hope in the power of friends. Have I not Constance? And then, you see, Professor, I am two-and-twenty, while the Chancellor and the Duchess are both sixty-five. Perhaps they may join the majority.’

The Professor shook her head. Even to speak of the age of so great a lady, even to hint at her death as an event likely to happen soon, was an outrage against propriety—which is religion.

‘My determination is this,’ he went on, ‘whatever the consequence, I will never marry the Duchess. Law or no law, I will never marry a woman unless I love her.’ His eye rested for a moment on his cousin, and he reddened. ‘I may be imprisoned, but I shall carry with me the sympathy of every woman—that is, of every young woman—in the country.’

‘That will not help you, poor boy,’ said the Professor. ‘Hundreds of men are lying in our prisons who would have the sympathies of young women, were their histories known. But they lie there still, and will lie there till they die.’

‘Then I,’ said the Earl proudly, ‘will lie with them.’

There were moments when this young man seemed to forget the lessons of his early training, and the examples of his fellows. The meekness, modesty, submission, and docility which should mark the perfect man sometimes disappeared, and gave place to an assumption of the authority which should only belong to woman. At such times, in his own castle, his servants trembled before him; the stoutest woman’s heart failed for fear: even his guardian, the Dowager Lady Boltons, selected carefully by the Chancellor on account of her inflexible character, and because she had already reduced to complete submission a young heir of the most obstinate disposition, and the rudest and most uncompromising material, quailed before him. He rode over her, so to speak. His will conquered hers. She was ashamed to own it; she did not acquaint the Chancellor with her ward’s masterful character, but she knew, in her own mind, that her guardianship had been a failure. Nay, so strange was the personal influence of the young man, so infectious among the men were such assertions of will, that any husband who happened to witness one of them, would go home and carry on in fashion so masterful, so independent, and so self-willed, even those who had previously been the most submissive, that they were only brought to reason and proper submission by threats, remonstrances, and visits of admonition from the vicar—who, poor woman, was always occupied in the pulpit, owing to the Earl’s bad example, with the disobedience of man and its awful consequences here and hereafter. Sometimes these failed. Then they became acquainted with the inside of a prison and with bread and water.

‘Let us get time,’ said the Professor. ‘My lord, I hope,’—here she sunk her voice to a whisper—‘that you will neither lie in a prison nor marry any but the woman you love.’

Again the young man’s eyes boldly fell upon Constance, who blushed without knowing why.

Then the Professor, without any excuse, left them alone.

‘You have,’ said Lord Chester, ‘something to say to me, Constance.’

She hesitated. What use to say now what should have been said at another time and at a more fitting opportunity?

‘I am no milky, modest, obedient youth, Constance. You know me well. Have you nothing to say to me?’

In the novels, the young man who hears the first word of love generally sinks on his knees, and with downcast eyes and blushing face reverentially kisses the hand so graciously offered to him. In ordinary life they had to wait until they were asked. Yet this young man was actually asking—boldly asking—for the word of love—what else could he mean?—and instead of blushing, was fixedly regarding Constance with fearless eyes.

‘It seems idle now to say it,’ she replied, stammering and hesitating—though in novels the woman always spoke up in a clear, calm, and resolute accents; ‘but, Edward, had the Chancellor not been notoriously the personal friend and creature of the Duchess, I should have gone to her long ago. They were schoolfellows; she owes her promotion to the Duchess; she would most certainly have rewarded her Grace by refusing my request.’

‘Yet you are a Carlyon and I am a Chester. On what plea?’

‘Cousinship, incompatibility of temper, some legal quibble—who knows? However, that is past; forget, my poor Edward, that I have told what should have been a secret. You will marry the Duchess—you——’

He interrupted her by laughing—a cheerfully sarcastic laugh, as of one who holds the winning cards and means to play them.

‘Fair cousin,’ he said, ‘I have something to say to you of far more importance than that. You have retired before an imaginary difficulty. I am going to face a real difficulty, a real danger. Constance,’ he went on, ‘you and I are such old friends and playfellows, that you know me as well as a woman can ever know a man who is not her husband. We played together when you were three and I was five. When you were ten and I was twelve, we read out of the same book until the stupidity and absurdity of modern custom tried to stop me from reading any more. Since then we have read separately, and you have done your best to addle your pretty head with political economy, in the name and by the aid of which you and your House of Lawmakers have ruined this once great country.’

‘Edward! this is the wildest treason. Where, oh, where, did you learn to talk—to think—to dare such dreadful things?’

‘Never mind where, Constance. In those days—in those years of daily companionship—a hope grew up in my heart,—a flame of fire which kept me alive, I think, amidst the depression and gloom of my fellow men. Can you doubt what was that hope?’

Constance trembled—the Countess of Carlyon, the Home Secretary, trembled. Had she ever before, in all her life, trembled? She was afraid. In the novels, it was true, many a young man, greatly daring, by a bold word swept away a cloud of misunderstanding and reserve. But this was in novels written by women of the middle class, who can never hope to marry young, for the solace of people of their own rank. It was not to be expected that in such works there should be any basis of reality—they were in no sense pictures of life; for, in reality, as was deplored almost openly, when these elderly ladies were rich enough to take a husband and face the possibilities of marriage, though they always chose the young men, it was rare indeed that they met with more than a respectful acquiescence. Nothing, ladies complained, among each other, was more difficult to win and retain a young man’s love. But here was this headstrong youth, with love in his eyes—bold, passionate, masterful love—overpowering love—love in his attitude as he bent over the girl, and love upon his lips. Oh, dignity of a Home Secretary! Oh, rules and conventions of life! Oh, restraints of religion! Where were they all at this most fatal moment?

‘Constance,’ he said taking her hand, ‘all the rubbish about manly modesty is outside the door: and that is closed. I am descended from a race who in the good old days wooed their brides for themselves, and fought for them too, if necessary. Not toothless, hoary old women, but young, sunny, blooming girls, like yourself. And they wooed them thus, my sweet.’ He seized her in his strong arms and kissed her on the lips, on the cheeks, on the forehead. Constance, frightened and moved, made no resistance, and answered nothing. Once she looked up and met his eyes, but they were so strong, so burning, so determined, that she was fain to look no longer. ‘I love you, my dear,’ the shameless young man went on,—‘I love you. I have always loved you, and shall never love any other woman; and if I may not marry you, I will never marry at all. Kiss me yourself, my sweet; tell me that you love me.’

Had he a spell? was he a wizard, this lover of hers? Could Constance, she thought afterwards, trying to recall the scene, have dreamed the thing, or did she throw her arms about his neck and murmur in his ears that she too loved him, and that if she could not marry him, there was no other man in all the world for her?

To recall those five precious minutes, indeed, was afterwards to experience a sense of humiliation which, while it crimsoned her cheek, made her heart and pulse to beat, and sent the blood coursing through her veins. She felt so feeble and so small, but then her lover was so strong. Could she have believed it possible that the will of a man should thus be able to overpower her? Why, she made no resistance at all while her cousin in this unheard-of manner betrayed a passion which ... which ... yes, by all the principles of holy religion, by all the rules of society, by all the teaching which inculcated submission, patience, and waiting to be chosen, caused this young man to deserve punishment—condign, sharp, exemplary. And yet—what did this mean? Constance felt her heart go forth to him. She loved him the more for his masterfulness; she was prouder of herself because of his great passion.

That was what she thought afterwards. What she did, when she began to recover, was to free herself and hide her burning face in her hands.

‘Edward,’ she whispered, ‘we are mad. And I, who should have known better, am the more culpable. Let us forget this moment. Let us respect each other. Let us be silent.’

‘Respect?’ he echoed. ‘Why, who could respect you, Constance, more than I do? Silence? Yes, for a while. Forget? Never!’

‘It is wrong, it is irreligious,’ she faltered.

‘Wrong! Oh, Constance, let us not, between ourselves, talk the foolish unrealities of school and pulpit.’

‘Oh, Edward!’—she looked about her in terror—‘for Heaven’s sake do not blaspheme. If any were to hear you. For words less rebellious men have been sent to the prisons for life.’

He laughed. This young infidel laughed at law as he laughed at religion.

‘Have patience,’ Constance went on, trying to get into her usual frame of mind; but she was shaken to the very foundation, and at the moment actually felt as if her religion was turned upside down and her allegiance transferred to the Perfect Man. ‘Have patience, Edward; you will yet win through to the higher faith. Many a young man overpowered by his strength, as you have been, has had his doubts, and yet has landed at last upon the solid rock of truth.’

Edward made no reply to this, not even by a smile. It was not a moment in which the ordinary consolations of religion, so freely offered by women to men, could touch his soul. He took out his watch and remarked that the time was getting on, and that the Chancellor’s appointment must be kept.

‘With her ladyship, I suppose,’ he said, ‘we shall find the painted, ruddled, bewigged old hag who has the audacity to ask me—me—in marriage.’

Constance caught his hand.

‘Edward! cousin! are you mad? Are you proposing to seek a prison at once? Hag? old? painted? ruddled? And this of the Duchess of Dunstanburgh? Are you aware that the least of these charges is actionable at common law? For my sake, Edward, if not your own, be careful.’

‘I will, sweet Constance. And for your sake, just to our two selves, I repeat that the painted——’

‘Oh!’

‘The ruddled——’

‘Oh, hush!’

‘The bewigged——’

‘Edward!’

‘Old hag—do you hear?—OLD HAG shall never marry me.’

Once more this audacious and unmanly lover, who respected nothing, seized her by the waist and kissed her lips. Once more Lady Carlyon felt that unaccountable weakness steal upon her, so that she was bewildered, faint, and humiliated. For a moment she lay still and acquiescent in his arms. Worse than all, the door opened and Professor Ingleby surprised her in this compromising situation.

‘Upon my word!’ she said, with a smile upon her lips; ‘upon my word, my lord—Constance—if her Grace of Dunstanburgh knew this! Children, children!’—she laid her withered hand upon Constance’s head—‘I pray that this thing may be. But we want time. Let us keep Lord Chester’s appointment. And, as far as you can, leave to me, my lord, your old tutor, the task of speech. I know the Duchess, and I know the Chancellor. It may be that the oil of persuasion will be more efficacious than the lash of contradiction. Let me try.’

They stood confused—even the unblushing front of the lover reddened.

‘I have thought of a way of getting time. Come with us, Constance, as Lord Chester’s nearest female relation; I as his tutor, in absence of Lady Boltons, who is ill. When the Chancellor proposes the Duchess, do you propose—yourself. She will decide against you on the spot. Appeal to the House; that will give us three months’ delay.’