But now they were parted. He was not a man to linger much over the sweetness of a caress when sterner work was in his hands to be done. "Lady Lovel," he said, "you must see that this opposition is fruitless. Ask your cousin, Lord Lovel, and he will tell you that it is so."
"I care nothing for my cousin. If he be false, I am true. Though all the world be false, still will I be true. I do not ask her to marry her cousin. I simply demand that she shall relinquish one who is infinitely beneath her,—who is unfit to tie her very shoe-string."
"He is my equal in all things," said Lady Anna, "and he shall be my lord and husband."
"I know of no inequalities such as those you speak of, Lady Lovel," said the tailor. "The excellence of your daughter's merits I admit, and am almost disposed to claim some goodness for myself, finding that one so good can love me. But, Lady Lovel, I do not wish to remain here now. You are disturbed."
"I am disturbed, and you had better go."
"I will go at once if you will let me name some early day on which I may be allowed to meet Lady Anna,—alone. And I tell her here that if she be not permitted so to see me, it will be her duty to leave her mother's house, and come to me. There is my address, dear." Then he handed to her a paper on which he had written the name of the street and number at which he was now living. "You are free to come and go as you list, and if you will send to me there, I will find you here or elsewhere as you may command me. It is but a short five minutes' walk beyond the house at which you were staying in Bedford Square."
The Countess stood silent for a moment or two, looking at them, during which neither the girl spoke nor her lover. "You will not even allow her six months to think of it?" said the Countess.
"I will allow her six years if she says that she requires time to think of it."
"I do not want an hour,—not a minute," said Lady Anna.
The mother flashed round upon her daughter. "Poor vain, degraded wretch," she said.