“Ah! I cannot answer the question. I fear for Discontent and Disdain.”
“You are an enigma—but I will take pains and not rest till I solve you.”
“I defy you.”
“Thanks—better defy than despise.
“Oh, you must be strangely altered, if I can despise you.”
“Indeed! what do you remember of me?”
“That you were frank, bold, and therefore, I suppose, true!—that you shocked my aunts and my father by your contempt for the vulgar hypocrisies of our conventional life. Oh, no! I cannot despise you.”
Lumley raised his eyes to those of Florence—he gazed on her long and earnestly—ambitious hopes rose high within him.
“My fair cousin,” said he, in an altered and serious tone, “I see something in your spirit kindred to mine; and I am glad that yours is one of the earliest voices which confirm my new resolves on my return to busy England!”
“And those resolves?”