“Show me, then, that you are not deficient in the quality, and give me a plain answer to a plain question. Who are we?”
“I have just told you,” said Beecher, whose confusion now made him stammer and stutter at every word,—“I have just told you that your father never spoke to me about his relations. I really don't know his county, nor anything about his family.”
“Then it only remains to ask, What are we? or, in easier words, Has my father any calling or profession? Come, sir, so much you can certainly tell me.”
“Your father was a captain in a West India regiment, and, when I met him first, he was a man about town,—went to all the races, made his bets, won and lost, like the rest of us; always popular,—knew everybody.”
“A 'sporting character,' in short,—is n't that the name newspapers give it?” said she, with a malicious twinkle of the eye.
“By Jove! how you hit a thing off at once!” exclaimed Beecher, in honest ecstasy at her shrewdness.
“So, then, I am at the end of the riddle at last,” said she, musingly, as she arose and walked the room in deep meditation. “Far better to have told me so many a year ago; far better to have let me conform to this station when I might have done so easily and without a pang!” A bitter sigh escaped her at the last word, and Beecher arose and joined her.
“I hope you are not displeased with me, my dear Miss Davis,” said he, with a trembling voice; “I don't know what I'd not rather suffer than offend you.”
“You have not offended me,” said she, coldly.
“Well, I mean, than I 'd pain you,—than I 'd say anything that should distress you. You know, after all, it was n't quite fair to push me so hard.”