‘Oh, very well, mamma,’ said Millicent; and she got up, with no softening of her looks. She was vexed that he had come; yet vexed to go away and leave him with her mother,--vexed to see him, with a feeling of doing him wrong, with which Mrs. Tracy’s obtuse faculties were not troubled. She swept out of the room without so much as looking at him, and then stood outside with a thousand minds to go back. She was not callous, nor cruel, nor without heart, though she had been brought up to one debasing trade. If she had never seen him after, it would have made the whole matter practicable; but to know all he had done, and why he had done it; to see the love,--such love!--in his eyes; and to be obliged to be polite and grateful, and no more! Nature rebelled to such an extent in the young woman’s mind that it woke her to sudden alarm! Could she be falling in love with Ben? as her mother said. When that absurd idea entered her thoughts she turned quickly away, and ran up-stairs to her room, and went to her packing, leaving her mother to deal with him. No, not quite;--not so ridiculous as that!
‘Have I offended her?’ said Ben. ‘Is she angry with me for my--presumption? What have I done to make her go away?’
‘Nothing, my dear friend,’ said Mrs. Tracy, taking his hand, and pressing it; ‘nothing but the kindest, the noblest action. Oh, Mr. Renton, you must not be hard upon my poor child! She feels your generosity so much, and she feels our miserable position so much,--and, in short, it is a conflict of pride and gratitude----’
‘Gratitude!’ said Ben, sadly. ‘Ah, how ill you judge me;--as if I wanted gratitude! I wish I had wealth to pour at her feet. I wish I could give her---- But that is folly. Has she not a word to say to me, after all?’
What he meant by ‘after all,’ was, after the opening of his heart,--after the pouring forth of his love. But to Mrs. Tracy it meant after the hundred pounds; and here was a way of making an end of him very ready to her hands.
‘Mr. Renton,’ she said, with an assumption of dignity which sat very well, and looked natural enough, ‘it was my doing, accepting it,--it was not Millicent’s doing. I thought it was offered out of kindness and friendship. Any one, almost, would pity two women left alone as we were; and I accepted it, as I thought, in the spirit it was offered; but if I had thought it was a price for my child’s affections----’