"The man you speak of is without these advantages," he said. "I understand—they are a wall between you and him."
"No. This morning my grandmother told me that I was to be her heiress; but I entreated her to take time. Before she decides, I wish her to judge of this man as he is, without prejudice or favor. Then she shall know all, and if she is willing to endow us with her wealth, there never was so grateful a girl as I shall be; but, if not, I will fall upon my knees, kiss her dear old hand, thank her for what she has done, and go away to America, where a man's talents and energies can work out something that will answer very well for a patent of nobility."
"And you will carry this out? give up the title?"
"The title! Ah, that may be of value in America," answered Clara, with a laugh full of good-natured scorn; "those things, they tell me, are at a premium out yonder."
"Brave girl! You shame me by this generous energy."
"Shame you? not at all; only I happen to know that there is something worth living for besides the things we hold so precious. A man, brave enough to work out his own career, has taught me that real greatness is not always hereditary. Ah! if you could only think so, too, Lord Hilton, you would understand that there is nothing on earth so sweet as the love for which we make sacrifices."
"What a strange girl you are, Lady Clara! Up to this time you have seemed to me only a very pretty and very capricious child—a charming child, truly, but—"
"There it is again," cried the girl falling back into her natural manner; "everybody will insist on treating me like a child. Oh! how I wish I was a little taller, like—like Caroline!"
Lord Hilton started, and a flood of recollections came back upon him—that soft Italian sky, a flight of vine-draped terraces, and, on the steps, that tall, beautiful girl watching for him. In this picture he forgot Olympia and everything that had repulsed him.
"I shall never think of you as a child again, but as her friend—her earnest, kind, noble friend!"