“Could he not look the character?” said Linton, putting on a smile of seeming good-humor, while his lip trembled with passion.
“Look it,—ay, that could he; and if looks would suffice, he could be all that his ambition aims at.”
“You doubt my sincerity, Maritafia,” said he, sorrowfully; “have I ever given you cause to do so?”
“Never,” cried she, impetuously: “I read you from the first hour I saw you. You never deceived me. My training has not been like that of others of my sex and age, amidst the good, the virtuous, and the pure. It was the corrupt, the base-born, and the abandoned offered their examples to my eyes; the ruined gambler, the beggared adventurer,—their lives were my daily study. How, then, should I not recognize one so worthy of them all?”
“This is less than fair, Maritafia; you bear me a grudge for having counselled that career wherein your triumphs were unbounded; and now you speak to me harshly for offering a station a princess might accept without a derogation.”
“Tell me not of my triumphs,” said she, passionately: “they were my shame! You corrupted me, by trifling with my ignorance of the world. I did not know then, as now I know, what were the prizes of that ambition I cherished! But you knew them; you speculated on them, as now you speculate upon others. Ay, blush for it; let your cheek glow, and sear your cold heart for the infamy! The coroneted duchess would have been a costlier merchandise than the wreathed dancer! Oh, shame upon you! shame upon you! Could you not be satisfied with your gambler's cruelty, and ruin those who have manhood's courage to sustain defeat, but that you should make your victim a poor, weak, motherless girl, whose unprotected life might have evoked even your pity?”
“I will supplicate no longer; upon you be it if the alternative be heavy. Hear me, young lady; it is by your father's consent—nay, more, at his desire—that I make you the proffer of my name and rank. He is in my power,—not his fortune nor his future prospects, but his very life is in my hands. You shudder at having been a dancer; think of what you may be,—the daughter of a forçat, a galley-slave! If these be idle threats, ask himself; he will tell you if I speak truly. It is my ambition that you should share my title and my fortune. I mean to make your position one that the proudest would envy; reject my offer if you will, but never reproach me with what your own blind folly has accomplished.”
Maritaña stood with clasped hands, and eyes wildly staring on vacancy, as Linton, in a voice broken with passion, uttered these words,—
“I will not press you now, Maritaña; you shall have to-night to think over all I have said; to-morrow you will give me your answer.”
“To-morrow?” muttered she, after him.