"He will be very hard upon you in the way of politics."
"I can answer him better than I can you, sir. Mr. Lupton said he would come for a day or two. He'll stand to me."
After that his father stopped him as he was about to leave the room. "One more word, Silverbridge. Do you remember what you were saying when you walked down to the House with me from your club that night?" Silverbridge remembered very well what he had said. He had undertaken to ask Mabel Grex to be his wife, and had received his father's ready approval to the proposition. But at this moment he was unwilling to refer to that matter. "I have thought about it very much since that," said the Duke. "I may say that I have been thinking of it every day. If there were anything to tell me, you would let me know;—would you not?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then there is nothing to be told? I hope you have not changed your mind."
Silverbridge paused a moment, trusting that he might be able to escape the making of any answer;—but the Duke evidently intended to have an answer. "It appeared to me, sir, that it did not seem to suit her," said the hardly-driven young man. He could not now say that Mabel had shown a disposition to reject his offer, because as they had been sitting by the brookside at Killancodlem, even he, with all his self-diffidence, had been forced to see what were her wishes. Her confusion, and too evident despair when she heard of the offer to the American girl, had plainly told her tale. He could not now plead to his father that Mabel Grex would refuse his offer. But his self-defence, when first he found that he had lost himself in love for the American, had been based on that idea. He had done his best to make Mabel understand him. If he had not actually offered to her, he had done the next thing to it. And he had run after her, till he was ashamed of such running. She had given him no encouragement;—and therefore he had been justified. No doubt he must have been mistaken; that he now perceived; but still he felt himself to be justified. It was impossible that he should explain all this to his father. One thing he certainly could not say,—just at present. After his folly in regard to those heavy debts he could not at once risk his father's renewed anger by proposing to him an American daughter-in-law. That must stand over, at any rate till the girl had accepted him positively. "I am afraid it won't come off, sir," he said at last.
"Then I am to presume that you have changed your mind?"
"I told you when we were speaking of it that I was not confident."
"She has not—"
"I can't explain it all, sir,—but I fear it won't come off."