“And what was your answer?”
“I'd have made it up with the old swell. I'd say, 'Is not this boy more to you than all those long-petticoated tonsured humbugs, who can always cheat some one or other out of an Inheritance?' I 'd say, 'Look at him, and you'll fancy it's Walter telling you that he forgives you.'”
“If he be like most of his order, Miss Becky, he 'd only smile at your appeal,” said Maitland, coldly.
“Well, I 'd not let it be laughing matter with him, I can tell you; stupid wills are broken every day of the week, and I don't think the Jesuits are in such favor in England that a jury would decide for them against an English youth of the kith and kin of the testator.”
“You speak cleverly, Miss Graham, and you show that you know all the value that attaches to popular sympathy in the age we live in.”
“And don't you agree with me?”
“Ah, there's a deal to be said on either side.”
“Then, for Heaven's sake, don't say it. There—no—more to the left—there, where you see the blue smoke rising over the rocks—there stands the widow's cottage. I don't know how she endures the loneliness of it. Could you face such a life?”
“A double solitude—what the French call an egoisme à deux—is not so insupportable. In fact, it all depends upon 'the partner with whom we share our isolation.'” He threw a tone of half tenderness into the words that made them very significant, and Rebecca gave him one of her quick sudden glances with which she often read a secret motive. This time, however, she failed. There was nothing in that sallow but handsome face that revealed a clew to anything.
“I 'll have to ask Mrs. Butler's leave before I present you,” said she, suddenly.