“Permit me to judge for myself,” said Miss Fanshawe, with hauteur. “I want no shawl.”
“Your dress is thin, you have been dancing, you are heated.”
“Always preaching,” retorted she; “always coddling and admonishing.”
The answer Dr. John would have given did not come; that his heart was hurt became evident in his eye; darkened, and saddened, and pained, he turned a little aside, but was patient. I knew where there were plenty of shawls near at hand; I ran and fetched one.
“She shall wear this, if I have strength to make her,” said I, folding it well round her muslin dress, covering carefully her neck and her arms. “Is that Isidore?” I asked, in a somewhat fierce whisper.
She pushed up her lip, smiled, and nodded.
“Is that Isidore?” I repeated, giving her a shake: I could have given her a dozen.
“C’est lui-même,” said she. “How coarse he is, compared with the Colonel-Count! And then—oh ciel!—the whiskers!”
Dr. John now passed on.
“The Colonel-Count!” I echoed. “The doll—the puppet—the manikin—the poor inferior creature! A mere lackey for Dr. John his valet, his foot-boy! Is it possible that fine generous gentleman—handsome as a vision—offers you his honourable hand and gallant heart, and promises to protect your flimsy person and feckless mind through the storms and struggles of life—and you hang back—you scorn, you sting, you torture him! Have you power to do this? Who gave you that power? Where is it? Does it lie all in your beauty—your pink and white complexion, and your yellow hair? Does this bind his soul at your feet, and bend his neck under your yoke? Does this purchase for you his affection, his tenderness, his thoughts, his hopes, his interest, his noble, cordial love—and will you not have it? Do you scorn it? You are only dissembling: you are not in earnest: you love him; you long for him; but you trifle with his heart to make him more surely yours?”