You must not go without telling me how I have vexed you. What would you have me do?" "Nothing, sir, but" (in an agitated tone), "oh! let me go! You cannot change my mind it's quite made up. Oh, sir! why do you hold me so tight? If you will know why I won't have anything more to do with you, it is that I cannot love you. I have tried, and I really cannot." This naive and candid avowal served her but little. He could not understand how it could be true. Some reason lurked behind. He was passionately in love. What should he do to tempt her? A thought struck him. "Listen! Mary. Nay, I cannot let you go till you have heard me. I do love you dearly; and I won't believe but what you love me a very little, just a very little. Well, if you don't like to own it, never mind I only want now to tell you how much I love you, by what I am ready to give up for you. You know (or perhaps you are not fully aware) how little my father and mother would like me to marry you. So angry would they be, and so much ridicule should I have to brave, that of course I have never thought of it till now. I thought we could be happy enough without marriage." (Deep sank those words into Mary's heart.) "But now, if you like, I'll get a licence to-morrow morning--nay, to-night, and I'll marry you in defiance of all the world, rather than give you up. In a year or two my father will forgive me, and meanwhile you shall have every luxury money can purchase, and every charm that love can devise to make your life happy. After all, my mother was but a factory girl." (This was said to himself, as if to reconcile himself to this bold step.) "Now, Mary, you see how willing I am to--to sacrifice a good deal for you; I even offer you marriage, to satisfy your little ambitious heart; so now, won't you say, you can love me a little, little bit?" He pulled her towards him. To his surprise, she still resisted. Yes I though all she had pictured to herself for so many months in being the wife of Mr Carson was now within her grasp, she resisted. His speech had given her but one feeling, that of exceeding great relief. For she had dreaded, now she knew what true love was, to think of the attachment she might have created; the deep feeling her flirting conduct might have called out. She had loaded her self with reproaches for the misery she might have caused.
It was a relief, to gather that the attachment was of that low, despicable kind which can plan to seduce the object of its affection; that the feeling she had caused was shallow enough for it only pretended to embrace self; at the expense of the misery, the ruin, of one falsely termed beloved.
She need not be penitent to such a plotter! That was the relief. "I am obliged to you, sir, for telling me what you have. You may think I am a fool; but I did think you meant to marry me all along; and yet, thinking so, I felt I could not love you. Still I felt sorry I had gone so far in keeping company with you. Now, sir, I tell you, if I had loved you before, I don't think I should have loved you now you have told me you meant to ruin me; for that's the plain English of not meaning to marry me till just this minute. I said I was sorry, and humbly begged your pardon; that was before I knew what you were. Now I scorn you, sir, for plotting to ruin a poor girl. Good night." And with a wrench, for which she had reserved all her strength, she flew off like a bolt. They heard her flying footsteps echo down the quiet street.
The next sound was Sally's laugh, which grated on Mr Carson's ears, and keenly irritated him. "And what do you find so amusing, Sally?" asked he. "Oh, sir, I beg your pardon. I humbly beg your pardon, as Mary says, but I can't help laughing to think how she's outwitted us." (She was going to have said, "outwitted you," but changed the pronoun.) "Why, Sally, had you any idea she was going to fly out in this style?" "No, I hadn't, to be sure. But if you did think of marrying her, why (if I may be so bold as to ask) did you go and tell her you had no thought of doing otherwise by her? That was what put her up at last!" "Why, I had repeatedly before led her to infer that marriage was not my object. I never dreamed she could have been so foolish as to have mistaken me, little provoking romancer though she be! So I naturally wished her to know what a sacrifice of prejudice, of-of myself, in short, I was willing to make for her sake; yet I don't think she was aware of it after all.
I believe I might have any lady in Manchester if I liked, and yet I was willing and ready to marry a poor dressmaker. Don't you understand me now? and don't you see what a sacrifice I was making to humour her? and all to no avail." Sally was silent, so he went on: "My father would have forgiven any temporary connexion, far sooner than my marrying one so far beneath me in rank." "I thought you said, sir, your mother was a factory girl," remarked Sally, rather maliciously. "Yes, yes!--but then my father was in much such a station; at any rate, there was not the disparity there is between Mary and me. Another pause. "Then you mean to give her up, sir? She made no bones of saying she gave you up. "No; I do not mean to give her up, whatever you and she may please to think.
I am more in love with her than ever; even for this charming capricious ebullition of hers. She'll come round, you may depend upon it. Women alway do. They always have second thoughts, and find out that they are best in casting off a lover. Mind, I don't say I shall offer her the same terms again." With a few more words of no importance, the allies parted.
