He returned to London on the last day of October, and he found the streets at the West End nearly deserted. He thought, therefore, that he should be quite alone at his club, but as he entered the dinner room he saw one of his oldest and most intimate friends standing before the fire. Fowler Pratt was the man who had first brought him into Sebright's, and had given him almost his earliest start on his successful career in life. Since that time he and his friend Fowler Pratt had lived in close communion, though Pratt had always held a certain ascendancy in their friendship. He was in age a few years senior to Crosbie, and was in truth a man of better parts. But he was less ambitious, less desirous of shining in the world, and much less popular with men in general. He was possessed of a moderate private fortune on which he lived in a quiet, modest manner, and was unmarried, not likely to marry, inoffensive, useless, and prudent. For the first few years of Crosbie's life in London he had lived very much with his friend Pratt, and had been accustomed to depend much on his friend's counsel; but latterly, since he had himself become somewhat noticeable, he had found more pleasure in the society of such men as Dale, who were not his superiors either in age or wisdom. But there had been no coolness between him and Pratt, and now they met with perfect cordiality.
"I thought you were down in Barsetshire," said Pratt.
"And I thought you were in Switzerland."
"I have been in Switzerland," said Pratt.
"And I have been in Barsetshire," said Crosbie. Then they ordered their dinner together.
"And so you're going to be married?" said Pratt, when the waiter had carried away the cheese.
"Who told you that?"
"Well, but you are? Never mind who told me, if I was told the truth."
"But if it be not true?"
"I have heard it for the last month," said Pratt, "and it has been spoken of as a thing certain; and it is true; is it not?"
"I believe it is," said Crosbie, slowly.
"Why, what on earth is the matter with you, that you speak of it in that way? Am I to congratulate you, or am I not? The lady, I'm told, is a cousin of Dale's."
Crosbie had turned his chair from the table round to the fire, and said nothing in answer to this. He sat with his glass of sherry in his hand, looking at the coals, and thinking whether it would not be well that he should tell the whole story to Pratt. No one could give him better advice; and no one, as far as he knew his friend, would be less shocked at the telling of such a story. Pratt had no romance about women, and had never pretended to very high sentiments.
"Come up into the smoking-room and I'll tell you all about it," said Crosbie. So they went off together, and, as the smoking-room was untenanted, Crosbie was able to tell his story.
He found it very hard to tell;—much harder than he had beforehand fancied. "I have got into terrible trouble," he began by saying. Then he told how he had fallen suddenly in love with Lily, how, he had been rash and imprudent, how nice she was—"infinitely too good for such a man as I am," he said;—how she had accepted him, and then how he had repented. "I should have told you beforehand," he then said, "that I was already half engaged to Lady Alexandrina de Courcy." The reader, however, will understand that this half engagement was a fiction.
"And now you mean that you are altogether engaged to her?"
"Exactly so."
"And that Miss Dale must be told that, on second thoughts, you have changed your mind?"
"I know that I have behaved very badly," said Crosbie.
"Indeed you have," said his friend.
"It is one of those troubles in which a man finds himself involved almost before he knows where he is."
"Well; I can't look at it exactly in that light. A man may amuse himself with a girl, and I can understand his disappointing her and not offering to marry her,—though even that sort of thing isn't much to my taste. But, by George, to make an offer of marriage to such a girl as that in September, to live for a month in her family as her affianced husband, and then coolly go away to another house in October, and make an offer to another girl of higher rank—"
"You know very well that that has had nothing to do with it."
"It looks very like it. And how are you going to communicate these tidings to Miss Dale?"
"I don't know," said Crosbie, who was beginning to be very sore.
"And you have quite made up your mind that you'll stick to the earl's daughter?"
The idea of jilting Alexandrina instead of Lily had never as yet presented itself to Crosbie, and now, as he thought of it, he could not perceive that it was feasible.
"Yes," he said, "I shall marry Lady Alexandrina;—that is, if I do not cut the whole concern, and my own throat into the bargain."
"If I were in your shoes I think I should cut the whole concern. I could not stand it. What do you mean to say to Miss Dale's uncle?"
"I don't care a –––– for Miss Dale's uncle," said, Crosbie. "If he were to walk in at that door this moment, I would tell him the whole story, without—"
As he was yet speaking, one of the club servants opened the door of the smoking-room, and seeing Crosbie seated in a lounging-chair near the fire, went up to him with a gentleman's card. Crosbie took the card and read the name. "Mr Dale, Allington."
"The gentleman is in the waiting-room," said the servant.
Crosbie for the moment was struck dumb. He had declared that very moment that he should feel no personal disinclination to meet Mr Dale, and now that gentleman was within the walls of the club, waiting to see him!
"Who's that?" asked Pratt. And then Crosbie handed him the card. "Whew-w-w-hew," whistled Pratt.
"Did you tell the gentleman I was here?" asked Crosbie.
"I said I thought you were upstairs, sir."
"That will do," said Pratt. "The gentleman will no doubt wait for a minute." And then the servant went out of the room. "Now, Crosbie, you must make up your mind. By one of these women and all her friends you will ever be regarded as a rascal, and they of course will look out to punish you with such punishment as may come to their hands. You must now choose which shall be the sufferer."
The man was a coward at heart. The reflection that he might, even now, at this moment, meet the old squire on pleasant terms,—or at any rate not on terms of defiance, pleaded more strongly in Lily's favour than had any other argument since Crosbie had first made up his mind to abandon her. He did not fear personal ill-usage;—he was not afraid lest he should be kicked or beaten; but he did not dare to face the just anger of the angry man.
"If I were you," said Pratt, "I would not go down to that man at the present moment for a trifle."
"But what can I do?"
"Shirk away out of the club. Only if you do that it seems to me that you'll have to go on shirking for the rest of your life."
"Pratt, I must say that I expected something more like friendship from you."
"What can I do for you? There are positions in which it is impossible to help a man. I tell you plainly that you have behaved very badly. I do not see that I can help you."
"Would you see him?"
"Certainly not, if I am to be expected to take your part."
"Take any part you like,—only tell him the truth."
"And what is the truth?"
"I was part engaged to that other girl before; and then, when I came to think of it, I knew that I was not fit to marry Miss Dale. I know I have behaved badly; but, Pratt, thousands have done the same thing before."
"I can only say that I have not been so unfortunate as to reckon any of those thousands among my friends."
"You mean to tell me, then, that you are going to turn your back on me?" said Crosbie.
"I haven't said anything of the kind. I certainly won't undertake to defend you, for I don't see that your conduct admits of defence. I will see this gentleman if you wish it, and tell him anything that you desire me to tell him."