Chapter 12

Margery could hardly repress a scream. As for flushing and blushing,
she had turned hot and turned pale so many times already during the
evening, that there was really now nothing of that sort left for her
to do; and she remained in complexion much as before. O, the mockery
of it! That secret dream--that sweet word 'Baroness!'--which had
sustained her all the way along. Instead of a Baron there stood Jim,
white-waistcoated, demure, every hair in place, and, if she mistook
not, even a deedy spark in his eye.

Jim's surprising presence on the scene may be briefly accounted for.
His resolve to seek an explanation with the Baron at all risks had
proved unexpectedly easy: the interview had at once been granted,
and then, seeing the crisis at which matters stood, the Baron had
generously revealed to Jim the whole of his indebtedness to and
knowledge of Margery. The truth of the Baron's statement, the
innocent nature as yet of the acquaintanceship, his sorrow for the
rupture he had produced, was so evident that, far from having any
further doubts of his patron, Jim frankly asked his advice on the
next step to be pursued. At this stage the Baron fell ill, and,
desiring much to see the two young people united before his death, he
had sent anew Hayward, and proposed the plan which they were to now
about to attempt--a marriage at the bedside of the sick man by
special licence. The influence at Lambeth of some friends of the
Baron's, and the charitable bequests of his late mother to several
deserving Church funds, were generally supposed to be among the
reasons why the application for the licence was not refused.

This, however, is of small consequence. The Baron probably knew, in
proposing this method of celebrating the marriage, that his enormous
power over her would outweigh any sentimental obstacles which she
might set up--inward objections that, without his presence and
firmness, might prove too much for her acquiescence. Doubtless he
foresaw, too, the advantage of getting her into the house before
making the individuality of her husband clear to her mind.

Now, the Baron's conjectures were right as to the event, but wrong as
to the motives. Margery was a perfect little dissembler on some
occasions, and one of them was when she wished to hide any sudden
mortification that might bring her into ridicule. She had no sooner
recovered from her first fit of discomfiture than pride bade her
suffer anything rather than reveal her absurd disappointment. Hence
the scene progressed as follows:

'Come here, Hayward,' said the invalid. Hayward came near. The
Baron, holding her hand in one of his own, and her lover's in the
other, continued, 'Will you, in spite of your recent vexation with
her, marry