"Oh, Isabel!"
His arm was now round her waist, but she continued speaking as though she were not aware of the embrace. "Yes, a trouble! I shall not be always just what I am now. Now I can be bright and pretty and hold my own with others because I am so. But are you sure,—I am not,—that I am such stuff as an English lady should be made of? If in ten years' time you found that others did not think so,—that, worse again, you did not think so yourself, would you be true to me then?"
"I will always be true to you."
She gently extricated herself, as though she had done so that she might better turn round and look into his face. "Oh, my own one, who can say of himself that it would be so? How could it be so, when you would have all the world against you? You would still be what you are,—with a clog round your leg while at home. In Parliament, among your friends, at your clubs, you would be just what you are. You would be that Lord Silverbridge who had all good things at his disposal,—except that he had been unfortunate in his marriage! But what should I be?" Though she paused he could not answer her,—not yet. There was a solemnity in her speech which made it necessary that he should hear her to the end. "I, too, have my friends in my own country. It is no disgrace to me there that my grandfather worked on the quays. No one holds her head higher than I do, or is more sure of being able to hold it. I have there that assurance of esteem and honour which you have here. I would lose it all to do you a good. But I will not lose it to do you an injury."
"I don't know about injuries," he said, getting up and walking about the room. "But I am sure of this. You will have to be my wife."
"If your father will take me by the hand and say that I shall be his daughter, I will risk all the rest. Even then it might not be wise; but we love each other too well not to run some peril. Do you think that I want anything better than to preside in your home, to soften your cares, to welcome your joys, to be the mother perhaps of your children, and to know that you are proud that I should be so? No, my darling. I can see a Paradise;—only, only, I may not be fit to enter it. I must use some judgment better than my own, sounder, dear, than yours. Tell the Duke what I say;—tell him with what language a son may use to his father. And remember that all you ask for yourself you will ask doubly for me."
"I will ask him so that he cannot refuse me."
"If you do I shall be contented. And now go. I have said ever so much, and I am tired."
"Isabel! Oh, my love!"
"Yes; Isabel;—your love! I am that at any rate for the present,—and proud to be so as a queen. Well, if it must be, this once,—as I have been so hard to you." Then she gave him her cheek to kiss, but of course he took more than she gave.