Chapter 27 - Page 2

is to tell her of the mistake she has made?"

"Nobody is to tell her."

That answer staggered me at the outset. I looked at Nugent in silent astonishment.

"There is nothing to be surprised at," he said. "Let me put my point of view before you in two words. I have had a serious talk with Oscar--"

Women are proverbially bad listeners--and I am no better than the rest of them. I interrupted him, before he could get any farther.

"I suppose Oscar has told you how the mistake happened?" I said.

"He has no idea how it happened. He owns--when he found himself face to face with her--that his presence of mind completely failed him: he didn't himself know what he was saying at the time. He lost his head; and she lost her patience. Think of his nervous confusion in collision with her nervous irritability--and the result explains itself: nothing could come of it but misapprehension and mistake. I turned the thing over in my mind, after you had left us; and the one course to take that I could see was to accept the position patiently, and to make the best instead of the worst of it. Having reached this conclusion, I settled the matter (as I settle most other difficulties)--by cutting the Gordian knot. I said to Oscar, 'Would it be a relief to your mind to leave her present impression undisturbed until you are married?' You know him--I needn't tell you what his answer was. 'Very well,' I said. 'Dry your eyes and compose yourself. I have begun as Blue Face. As Blue Face I will go on till further notice.' I spare you the description of Oscar's gratitude. I proposed; and he accepted. There is the way out of the difficulty as I see it."

"Your way out of the difficulty is an unworthy way, and a false way," I answered. "I protest against taking that cruel advantage of Lucilla's blindness. I refuse to have anything to do with it."

He opened his case, and took out a cigar.

"Do as you please," he said. "You saw the pitiable state she was in, when she forced herself to speak to me. You saw how her disgust and horror overpowered her at the end. Transfer that disgust and horror to Oscar (with indignation and contempt added in his case); expose him to the result of rousing those feelings in her, before he is fortified by a husband's influence over her mind, and a husband's place in her affections--if you dare. I love the poor fellow; and I daren't. May I smoke?"

I gave him his permission to smoke by a gesture. Before I said anything more to this inscrutable gentleman, I felt the necessity of understanding him--if I could.

There was no difficulty in accounting for his readiness to sacrifice himself in the interests of Oscar's tranquillity. He never did things by halves--he liked dashing at difficulties which would have made other men pause. The same zeal in his