HARLEY.—“Would his hostility to me lower him in your opinion? If he know that I am his rival, does not rivalry include hate?”
HELEN.—“Oh, Lord L’Estrange, how can you speak thus; how so wrong yourself? Hate—hate to you! and from Leonard Fairfield!”
HARLEY.—“You evade my question. Would his hate or hostility to me affect your sentiments towards him?”
HELEN (looking down).—“I could not force myself to believe in it.”
HARLEY.—“Why?”
HELEN.—“Because it would be so unworthy of him.”
HARLEY.—“Poor child! You have the delusion of your years. You deck a cloud in the hues of the rainbow, and will not believe that its glory is borrowed from the sun of your own fancy. But here, at least, you are not deceived. Leonard obeys but my wishes, and, I believe, against his own will. He has none of man’s noblest attribute, Ambition.”
HELEN.—“No ambition!”
HARLEY.—“It is vanity that stirs the poet to toil,—if toil the wayward chase of his own chimeras can be called. Ambition is a more masculine passion.”
Helen shook her head gently, but made no answer.