第25章

'Yes, papa; of course I know him. You used to see him in Italy.'

'I believe I did; I understood that he was there as a friend of Silverbridge.'

'His most intimate friend, papa.'

'I dare say. He came to me in London yesterday, and told me,--! Oh Mary, can it be true?'

'Yes, papa,' she said, covered up to her forehead with blushes, and with her eyes turned down. In the ordinary affairs of life she was a girl of great courage, who was not given to be shaken from her constancy by the pressures of any present difficulty; but now the terror inspired by her father's voice almost overpowered her.

'Do you mean to tell me that you have engaged yourself to that young man without my approval?'

'Of course you were to have been asked, papa.'

'Is that in accordance with your idea of what should be the conduct of a young lady in your position?'

'Nobody meant to conceal anything from you, papa.'

'It has been so far concealed. And yet this young man has the self-confidence to come to me and to demand your hand as though it were a matter of course that I should accede to so trivial a request. It is, as a matter of course, quite impossible. You understand that; do you not?' When she did not answer him at once, he repeated the question. 'I ask you whether you do not feel that it is altogether impossible?'

'No, papa,' she said, in the lowest possible whisper, but still in such a whisper that he could hear the word, and with so much clearness that he could judge from her face the obstinacy of her mind.

'Then, Mary, it becomes my duty to tell you that it is quite impossible. I will not have it thought of. There must be an end of it.'

'Why, papa?'

'Why! I am astonished that you should ask me why.'

'I should not have allowed him, papa, to go to you unless I had,--unless I had loved him.'

'Then you must conquer your love. It is disgraceful and must be conquered.'

'Disgraceful!'

'Yes. I am sorry to use such word to my own child, but it is so.

If you will promise to be guided by me in this matter, if you will undertake not to see him any more, I will,--if not forget it,--at any rate pardon it, and be silent. I will excuse it because you were young, and were thrown imprudently in his way. There has, I believe, been someone at work in the matter with whom I ought to be more angry than with you. Say that you will obey me, and there is nothing within a father's power that I will not do for you, to make your life happy.' It was thus that he strove to be stern.

His heart, indeed, was tender enough, but there was nothing tender in the tone of his voice or in the glance of his eye. Though he was very positive in what he said, yet he was shy and shamefaced even with his own daughter. He, too, had blushed when he told her that she must conquer her love.

That she should be told that she had disgraced herself was terrible to her. That her father should speak of her marriage with this man as an event that was impossible made her very unhappy.

That he should talk of pardoning her, as for some great fault, was in itself a misery. But she had not on that account the least idea of giving up her lover. Young as she was, she had her own peculiar theory on that matter, her own code of conduct and honour, from which she did not mean to be driven. Of course she had not expected that her father would yield at the first word. He, no doubt, would wish that she should make a more exalted marriage.

She had known that she would have to encounter opposition, though she had not expected to be told that she had disgraced herself. As she sat there she resolved that under no pretence would she give up her lover;--but she was so far abashed that she could not find words to express herself. He, too, had been silent for a few moments before he again asked her for her promise.

'Will you tell me, Mary, that you will not see him again?'

'I don't think I can say that, papa.'

'Why not?'

'Oh, papa, how can I, when of all people in the world I love him the best.'

It is not without a pang that anyone can be told that she who is of all the dearest has some other one who is to her the dearest.