She was still very quiet. I think she was at length awakening to the irreclaimable selfishness of the man before her; but her disillusionment fought against the last bitter concession to itself. For pity and poor heart’s sake she must struggle still to temporise—not to let go her final hold on duty. She forced a little painful smile; but her honesty would allow nothing to subterfuge.
“If you allude,” she said, “to his Excellency the envoy’s attentions to myself, I beg you to bear in mind, father, that I was taught a little English by my gouvernante, and that doubtless the poor man courted the sound of his native language, though on such imperfect lips.”
He smote fist into palm.
“Am I a child to be quieted with equivoque? I speak not of his attentions to you, but of the contempt for myself which they were designed to emphasise.”
“O, no, father! Indeed I am sure you are mistaken.”
Then the storm broke. Its pressure within him had rushed to relief by any outlet, even a pin-prick.
“And which you tacitly condoned,” he screamed. “Have I carried my honour, sensitive to a breath, a hint, a thing high and exclusive, untarnished through all these cursed years of adversity, and not to know when it is impugned? But you will be blind because you desire it—because your personal scruples—sha! are against a paltry sacrifice which would help to reinstate your father in the position which is his by right, and from which he could rise to recover something at least of the ancient influence of his house. No daughter of that or of mine—I say it before God. I am in the mood, I think, to curse you.”
She had risen to her feet, ghastly white, but with something born, and in a flash, into her expression which had never been there before.
“I think, if you did,” she said, “the curse would be let recoil on a shameful head.”
He uttered a terrible exclamation; but she silenced him.