Phoebe, Junior by Margaret Oliphant

The result, however, was a compromise. Clarence Copperhead went off with his father and Sir Robert to the Hall for the night, but was to return next day, and Phoebe was left in a condition of some excitement behind them, not quite knowing what to think. She was as sure as ever that he had made up his mind to propose; but he had not done it, and what effect his father's visit, and perhaps his mother's entreaties, might have upon him, Phoebe could not tell. The crisis excited her beyond any excitement which she would have thought possible in respect to Clarence Copperhead. She was more like an applicant for office kept uncertain whether she was to have a desirable post or not, than a girl on the eve of a lover's declaration. This was her own conception of the circumstances. She did not dislike Clarence; quite the reverse. She had no sympathy with Ursula's impatience of his heavy vanity. Phoebe had been used to him all her life, and had never thought badly of the heavy boy whom she had been invited to amuse when she was six years old, and whom she had no particular objection to amuse still, let the others wonder at her as they might. Poor Reginald, contemplating bitterly her many little complacencies to his rival, set them down hastily to an appreciation of that rival's worldly advantages, which was not quite a just sentence. It was true, and yet it was not true; other feelings mingled in Phoebe's worldliness. She did, indeed, perceive and esteem highly the advantages which Clarence could give her; but she had not the objections to Clarence himself that the others had. She was willing, quite willing, to undertake the charge of him, to manage, and guide, and make a man of him. And yet, while it was not pure worldliness, much less was it actual love which moved her. It was a kind of habitual affection, as for the "poor thing, but mine own, sir," of the jester. He was but a poor creature, but Phoebe knew she could make something of him, and she had no distaste to the task. When she began to perceive that Reginald, in so many ways Clarence's superior, was at her disposal, a sense of gratification went through Phoebe's mind, and it certainly occurred to her that the feeling he might inspire would be a warmer and a more delightful one than that which would fall to Clarence Copperhead; but she was not tempted thereby to throw Clarence off for the other. No, she was pleased, and not unwilling to expend a little tender regret and gratitude upon poor Reginald. She was ready to be "kind" to him, though every woman knows that is the last thing she ought to be to a rejected lover; and she was full of sympathy for the disappointment which, nevertheless, she fully intended was to be his lot. This seems paradoxical, but it is no more paradoxical than human creatures generally are. On this particular evening her heart beat very high on account of Clarence, to know if he would have strength of mind to hold his own against his father, and if he would come back to her and ask her, as she felt certain he meant to do, that one momentous question. Her heart would not have been broken had he not done so, but still she would have been disappointed. Notwithstanding when the evening came, the absence of Clarence was a relief to Phoebe as well as to the rest of the party, and she gave herself up to the pleasures of a few hours of half-tender intercourse with Reginald, with a sense of enjoyment such as she seldom felt. This was very wrong, there is no denying it, but still so it was. She was anxious that Clarence should come back to her, and ask her to be his wife; and yet she was pleased to be rid of Clarence, and to give her whole attention and sympathy to Reginald, trying her best to please him. It was very wrong; and yet such things have happened before, and will again; and are as natural, perhaps, as the more absolute and unwavering passion which has no doubt of its object, passion like Northcote's, who had neither eyes nor ears for anything but Ursula. The four were alone together that evening, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Clarence was away, who, to all but Phoebe, was an interruption of their intercourse; and Mr. May was away in his study, too much absorbed to think of any duties that ought to have devolved upon him as chaperon; and even Janey was out of the way, taking tea with Mrs. Hurst. So the two young pairs sat round the table and talked; the girls, with a mutual panic, which neither breathed to the other, keeping together, avoiding separation into pairs. Ursula out of very shyness and fright alone, lest another chapter of the strange, novel, too moving love-tale might be poured into her ears; but Phoebe with more settled purpose, to prevent any disclosure on the part of Reginald. The evening was mixed up of pleasure and pain to the two young men, each eager to find himself alone with the girl whom he loved; but it is to be feared the girls themselves had a furtive guilty enjoyment of it, which they ought not to have had. Open and outrageous lovemaking is not half so delicate a pastime as that in which nothing distinct dare be said, but all is implication, conveyed and understood without words. I know it is a dangerous thing to confess, but veracity requires the confession; you may say it was the playing of the cat with the mouse, if you wish to give a disagreeable version of it; but, however you choose to explain it, this was how it was.

It was with fear and trembling at last that Phoebe went to the piano, which was at the other end of the room, after making all the resistance which was possible.