“But,” she answered resolutely, pressing her fan very hard into the palm of her trembling hand, “supposing that I did? Why should I not?—you married my mother for love.”
“Not a bit of it,” he rejoined emphatically, “I liked her, admired her; she was very pretty, and had blue blood—foreign blood—in her veins, but she was a good match. She had a fine fortune, she was in the best set. Her father took me into partnership. I was a rising man—and—er—I know all about love; I have been through the mill! Ha, ha, it’s bad while it lasts, but it does not last! The woman I loved was a little girl from Tasmania, without a copper. She tempted me mightily, but I knew I might just as well cut my throat at once. No, I married for good and sensible reasons, and one word will do as well as ten. If you ever make a low marriage, a love match with a pauper, or throw yourself and your beauty and your accomplishments, and all I’ve done for you, and all my hopes away, I solemnly declare to you that I shall not hesitate to turn you penniless into the street. I swear I will do it, and never own you again. You might go and die in the poor-house, and I’d never raise a finger to save you from a pauper’s funeral.”
He spoke very fast, his voice uneven and vibrating with passion, his face livid at the mere idea of his schemes being foiled. He was terribly in earnest; his very look made Madeline quail. She trembled and turned pale, as she thought of poor Laurence.
“It’s not much I ask you to do for me, is it, Maddie, after all I’ve done for you?” he continued in a softer key. “I have my ambitions, like other men, and all my ambition is for you. Give up all thoughts of your lover—that is, if you have one—and be an obedient daughter. It’s not so much to do for me, after all.”
Was it not? Little he knew!
“Promise me one thing, Madeline,” he continued once more, breathing in hard gasps, and seizing her ice-cold hand in his hot dry grip.
“What is that, father?” she asked in a whisper.
“That you will never marry without my consent, and never listen to a commoner. Will you promise me this? Can you promise this?”
“Yes, father, I can,” she answered, steadily looking him full in the eyes, with a countenance as white as marble.
“On your honour, Madeline?”