New Grub Street - George Gissing (e book reader free TXT) 📗

shall transfer myself to a better paper presently. It seems to me I must be stirring to some purpose.”

He gave her a significant look.

“What shall we do, Jasper?”

“Work and wait, I suppose.”

“There’s something I must tell you. Father said I had better sign that Harrington article myself. If I do that, I shall have a right to the money, I think. It will at least be eight guineas. And why shouldn’t I go on writing for myself⁠—for us? You can help me to think of subjects.”

“First of all, what about my letter to your father? We are forgetting all about it.”

“He refused to answer.”

Marian avoided closer description of what had happened. It was partly that she felt ashamed of her father’s unreasoning wrath, and feared lest Jasper’s pride might receive an injury from which she in turn would suffer; partly that she was unwilling to pain her lover by making display of all she had undergone.

“Oh, he refused to reply! Surely that is extreme behaviour.”

What she dreaded seemed to be coming to pass. Jasper stood rather stiffly, and threw his head back.

“You know the reason, dear. That prejudice has entered into his very life. It is not you he dislikes; that is impossible. He thinks of you only as he would of anyone connected with Mr. Fadge.”

“Well, well; it isn’t a matter of much moment. But what I have in mind is this. Will it be possible for you, whilst living at home, to take a position of independence, and say that you are going to work for your own profit?”

“At least I might claim half the money I can earn. And I was thinking more of⁠—”

“Of what?”

“When I am your wife, I may be able to help. I could earn thirty or forty pounds a year, I think. That would pay the rent of a small house.”

She spoke with shaken voice, her eyes fixed upon his face.

“But, my dear Marian, we surely oughtn’t to think of marrying so long as expenses are so nicely fitted as all that?”

“No. I only meant⁠—”

She faltered, and her tongue became silent as her heart sank.

“It simply means,” pursued Jasper, seating himself and crossing his legs, “that I must move heaven and earth to improve my position. You know that my faith in myself is not small; there’s no knowing what I might do if I used every effort. But, upon my word, I don’t see much hope of our being able to marry for a year or two under the most favourable circumstances.”

“No; I quite understand that.”

“Can you promise to keep a little love for me all that time?” he asked with a constrained smile.

“You know me too well to fear.”

“I thought you seemed a little doubtful.”

His tone was not altogether that which makes banter pleasant between lovers. Marian looked at him fearfully. Was it possible for him in truth so to misunderstand her? He had never satisfied her heart’s desire of infinite love; she never spoke with him but she was oppressed with the suspicion that his love was not as great as hers, and, worse still, that he did not wholly comprehend the self-surrender which she strove to make plain in every word.

“You don’t say that seriously, Jasper?”

“But answer seriously.”

“How can you doubt that I would wait faithfully for you for years if it were necessary?”

“It mustn’t be years, that’s very certain. I think it preposterous for a man to hold a woman bound in that hopeless way.”

“But what question is there of holding me bound? Is love dependent on fixed engagements? Do you feel that, if we agreed to part, your love would be at once a thing of the past?”

“Why no, of course not.”

“Oh, but how coldly you speak, Jasper!”

She could not breathe a word which might be interpreted as fear lest the change of her circumstances should make a change in his feeling. Yet that was in her mind. The existence of such a fear meant, of course, that she did not entirely trust him, and viewed his character as something less than noble. Very seldom indeed is a woman free from such doubts, however absolute her love; and perhaps it is just as rare for a man to credit in his heart all the praises he speaks of his beloved. Passion is compatible with a great many of these imperfections of intellectual esteem. To see more clearly into Jasper’s personality was, for Marian, to suffer the more intolerable dread lest she should lose him.

She went to his side. Her heart ached because, in her great misery, he had not fondled her, and intoxicated her senses with loving words.

“How can I make you feel how much I love you?” she murmured.

“You mustn’t be so literal, dearest. Women are so desperately matter-of-fact; it comes out even in their love-talk.”

Marian was not without perception of the irony of such an opinion on Jasper’s lips.

“I am content for you to think so,” she said. “There is only one fact in my life of any importance, and I can never lose sight of it.”

“Well now, we are quite sure of each other. Tell me plainly, do you think me capable of forsaking you because you have perhaps lost your money?”

The question made her wince. If delicacy had held her tongue, it had no control of his.

“How can I answer that better,” she said, “than by saying I love you?”

It was no answer, and Jasper, though obtuse compared with her, understood that it was none. But the emotion which had prompted his words was genuine enough. Her touch, the perfume of her passion, had their exalting effect upon him. He felt in all sincerity that to forsake her would be a baseness, revenged by the loss of such a wife.

“There’s an uphill fight before me, that’s all,” he said, “instead of the pretty smooth course I have been looking forward to. But I don’t fear it, Marian. I’m not the fellow to be beaten. You shall be my wife, and you shall have as