“Would you, indeed, Beatrice?” said he. He was at the point of telling her all that he had learned from Mrs. Mowbray; he only restrained himself by an effort.
“I believe that he is both clever and wise.”
“The two do not always go together, certainly.”
“They do not. But Mr. Airey is, I think, both.”
“He has been better than either. To be successful is better than to be either wise or clever. Mr. Airey has been successful. He will get an Under-Secretaryship if the Government survives the want of confidence of the Opposition.”
“And you will go into Parliament, Harold?”
“That aspiration is past,” said he; “I have chosen the more excellent career. Now, tell me something of your aspirations, my beloved.”
But the enumeration of the terms of her aspirations is unnecessary.
How was it that some hours after this, Harold Wynne left the house with that cold feeling still at his heart?
Was it a pang of doubt in regard to Beatrice, or a pang of jealousy in regard to Edmund Airey?
HAROLD WYNNE remembered how he had made up his mind to judge whether or not Edmund Airey had been simply playing, in respect of Beatrice, the part which, according to Mrs. Mowbray’s story, had been assigned to him by Helen Craven. He had made up his mind that unless Edmund Airey meant to go much further than--according to Mrs. Mowbray’s communication--Helen Craven could reasonably ask him to go, he would not take the trouble to see Beatrice again.
Helen could scarcely expect him to give up his life to the furtherance of her interests with another man.
Well, he had found that Edmund, so far from showing any intention of abandoning the position--it has already been defined--which he had assumed toward Beatrice, had shown, in the plainest possible way, that he did not mean to lose sight of her.
And for such a man as he was, to mean so much, meant a great deal, Harold was forced to acknowledge.
He spent the remainder of the day which had begun so auspiciously, wondering if his friend, Edmund Airey, meant to tell Beatrice some day that he loved her, and, what was very much more important, that he was anxious to marry her.
And then that unworthy doubt of which he had become conscious, returned to him.
If Edmund Airey, who, at first, had merely been attracted to Beatrice with a view of furthering what Helen Craven believed to be her interests, had come to regard her differently--as he, Harold, assumed that he had--might it not be possible, he asked himself, that Beatrice, who had just admitted that she had always had some sort of admiration for Edmund Airey, would-------