Mr.Corbet's attachment to Ellinor had been formally disclosed to her just before this time.He had left college,entered at the Middle Temple,and was fagging away at law,and feeling success in his own power;Ellinor was to "come out"at the next Hamley assemblies;and her lover began to be jealous of the possible admirers her striking appearance and piquant conversation might attract,and thought it a good time to make the success of his suit certain by spoken words and promises.
He needed not have alarmed himself even enough to make him take this step,if he had been capable of understanding Ellinor's heart as fully as he did her appearance and conversation.She never missed the absence of formal words and promises.She considered herself as fully engaged to him,as much pledged to marry him and no one else,before he had asked the final question,as afterwards.She was rather surprised at the necessity for those decisive words,"Ellinor,dearest,will you--can you marry me?"and her reply was--given with a deep blush I must record,and in a soft murmuring tone -"Yes--oh,yes--I never thought of anything else.""Then I may speak to your father,may not I,darling?""He knows;I am sure he knows;and he likes you so much.Oh,how happy I am!""But still I must speak to him before I go.When can I see him,my Ellinor?I must go back to town at four o'clock.""I heard his voice in the stable-yard only just before you came.Let me go and find out if he is gone to the office yet."No!to be sure he was not gone.He was quietly smoking a cigar in his study,sitting in an easy-chair near the open window,and leisurely glancing at all the advertisements in The Times.He hated going to the office more and more since Dunster had become a partner;that fellow gave himself such airs of investigation and reprehension.
He got up,took the cigar out of his mouth,and placed a chair for Mr.Corbet,knowing well why he had thus formally prefaced his entrance into the room with a -"Can I have a few minutes'conversation with you,Mr.Wilkins?""Certainly,my dear fellow.Sit down.Will you have a cigar?""No!I never smoke."Mr.Corbet despised all these kinds of indulgences,and put a little severity into his refusal,but quite unintentionally;for though he was thankful he was not as other men,he was not at all the person to trouble himself unnecessarily with their reformation.
"I want to speak to you about Ellinor.She says she thinks you must be aware of our mutual attachment.""Well,"said Mr.Wilkins--he had resumed his cigar,partly to conceal his agitation at what he knew was coming--"I believe I have had my suspicions.It is not very long since I was young myself."And he sighed over the recollection of Lettice,and his fresh,hopeful youth.
"And I hope,sir,as you have been aware of it,and have never manifested any disapprobation of it,that you will not refuse your consent--a consent I now ask you for--to our marriage."Mr.Wilkins did not speak for a little while--a touch,a thought,a word more would have brought him to tears;for at the last he found it hard to give the consent which would part him from his only child.
Suddenly he got up,and putting his hand into that of the anxious lover (for his silence had rendered Mr.Corbet anxious up to a certain point of perplexity--he could not understand the implied he would and he would not),Mr.Wilkins said,"Yes!God bless you both!I will give her to you,some day--only it must be a long time first.And now go away--go back to her--for Ican't stand this much longer."Mr.Corbet returned to Ellinor.Mr.Wilkins sat down and buried his head in his hands,then went to his stable,and had Wildfire saddled for a good gallop over the country.Mr.Dunster waited for him in vain at the office,where an obstinate old country gentleman from a distant part of the shire would ignore Dunster's existence as a partner,and pertinaciously demanded to see Mr.Wilkins on important business.