"You have made your bed for yourself, Nora, and you must lie upon it."
"Just so, papa."
"I mean that, as you have refused Mr. Glascock's offer, you can never again hope for such an opening in life."
"Of course I cannot. I am not such a child as to suppose that there are many Mr. Glascocks to come and run after me. And if there were ever so many, papa, it would be no good. As you say, I have chosen for myself, and I must put up with it. When I see the carriages going about in the streets, and remember how often I shall have to go home in an omnibus, I do think about it a good deal."
"I'm afraid you will think when it is too late."
"It isn't that I don't like carriages, papa. I do like them; and pretty dresses, and brooches, and men and women who have nothing to do, and balls, and the opera; but—I love this man, and that is more to me than all the rest. I cannot help myself, if it were ever so. Papa, you mustn't be angry with me. Pray, pray, pray do not say that horrid word again."
This was the end of the interview. Sir Marmaduke found that he had nothing further to say. Nora, when she reached her last prayer to her father, referring to that curse with which he had threatened her, was herself in tears, and was leaning on him with her head against his shoulder. Of course he did not say a word which could be understood as sanctioning her engagement with Stanbury. He was as strongly determined as ever that it was his duty to save her from the perils of such a marriage as that. But, nevertheless, he was so far overcome by her as to be softened in his manners towards her. He kissed her as he left her, and told her to go to her mother. Then he went out and thought of it all, and felt as though Paradise had been opened to his child and she had refused to enter the gate.