All the hidden romance in my nature started at once into life. “Why not? What do you mean? Tell me.”
“There is nothing to tell,” said she; “only I have been so weak as to”—she would not say, fall in love, she was a proud woman—“admire a man whom my uncle will never allow me to marry.”
And she rose as if to go; but I drew her back. “Whom your uncle will not allow you to marry!” I repeated. “Why? because he is poor?”
“No; uncle loves money, but not to such an extent as that. Besides, Mr. Clavering is not poor. He is the owner of a beautiful place in his own country——”
“Own country?” I interrupted. “Is he not an American?”
“No,” she returned; “he is an Englishman.”
I did not see why she need say that in just the way she did, but, supposing she was aggravated by some secret memory, went on to inquire: “Then what difficulty can there be? Isn’t he—” I was going to say steady, but refrained.
“He is an Englishman,” she emphasized in the same bitter tone as before. “In saying that, I say it all. Uncle will never let me marry an Englishman.”
I looked at her in amazement. Such a puerile reason as this had never entered my mind.
“He has an absolute mania on the subject,” resumed she. “I might as well ask him to allow me to drown myself as to marry an Englishman.”