These words, which he accompanied with a gentle pressure of her hand, threw the astonished Arabella into such an excess of anger and shame, that, for a few moments, she was unable to utter a word.
What a horrid violation this, of all the laws of gallantry and respect, which decree a lover to suffer whole years in silence before he declares his flame to the divine object that causes it; and then with awful tremblings and submissive prostrations at the feet of the offended fair!
Arabella could hardly believe her senses when she heard a declaration, not only made without the usual forms, but also, that the presumptuous criminal waited for an answer, without seeming to have any apprehension of the punishment to which he was to be doomed; and that, instead of deprecating her wrath, he looked with a smiling wonder upon her eyes, as if he did not fear their lightning would strike him dead.
Indeed, it was scarce possible for him to help smiling, and wondering too, at the extraordinary action of Arabella; for, as soon as he had pronounced those fatal words, she started back two or three steps; cast a look at him full of the highest indignation; and, lifting up her fine eyes to heaven, seemed, in the language of romance, to accuse the gods for subjecting her to so cruel an indignity.
The tumult of her thoughts being a little settled, she turned again towards Glanville, whose countenance expressing nothing of that confusion and anxiety common to an adorer in so critical a circumstance, her rage returned with greater violence than ever.
If I do not express all the resentment your insolence has filled me with, said she to him, affecting more scorn than anger, it is because I hold you too mean for my resentment; but never hope for my pardon for your presumptuous confession of a passion I could almost despise myself for inspiring. If it be true that you love me, go and find your punishment in that absence to which I doom you; and never hope I will suffer a person in my presence, who has affronted me in the manner you have done.
Saying this, she walked away, making a sign to him not to follow her.
Mr. Glanville, who was at first disposed to laugh at the strange manner in which she received his expressions of esteem for her, found something so extremely haughty and contemptuous in the speech she had made, that he was almost mad with vexation.
As he had no notion of his cousin's heroic sentiments, and had never read romances, he was quite ignorant of the nature of his offence; and, supposing the scorn she had expressed for him was founded upon the difference of their rank and fortune, his pride was so sensibly mortified at that thought, and at her so insolently forbidding him her presence, that he was once inclined to show his resentment of such ungenteel usage, by quitting the castle without taking leave even of the marquis, who, he thought, could not be ignorant of the reception he was likely to meet with from his daughter; and ought to have guarded him against it, if he really meant him so well as he seemed to do.
As he was extremely violent and hasty in his resolutions, and nicely sensible of the least affront, he was not in a condition to reason justly upon the marquis's conduct in this affair; and while he was fluctuating with a thousand different resolutions, Lucy came to him with a billet from her lady, which she delivered without staying till he opened it; and was superscribed in this manner: