‘You are quite sure she prefers it?’
‘She has done so ever since she could exercise a choice. I should feel myself doing her an injustice if I were to take advantage of any preference she may entertain for me to condemn her to what would be to her a dreary banishment.’
‘Not with you,’ cried Phœbe.
‘You know nothing about it, Phœbe. You have never led such a life, and you it would not hurt—attract, I mean; but lovely, fascinating, formed for admiration, and craving for excitement as she is, she is a being that can only exist in society. She would be miserable in homely retirement—I mean she would prey on herself. I could not ask it of her. If she consented, it would be without knowing her own tastes. No; all that remains is to find out whether she can submit to owe her wealth to our business.’
‘And shall you?’
‘I could not but defer it till I should meet her here,’ said Robert. ‘I shrink from seeing her with those cousins, or hearing her name with theirs. Phœbe, imagine my feelings when, going into Mervyn’s club with him, I heard “Rashe Charteris and Cilly Sandbrook” contemptuously discussed by those very names, and jests passing on their independent ways. I know how it is. Those people work on her spirit of enterprise, and she—too guileless and innocent to heed appearances. Phœbe, you do not wonder that I am nearly mad!’
‘Poor Robin!’ said Phœbe affectionately. ‘But, indeed, I am sure, if Lucy once had a hint—no, one could not tell her, it would shock her too much; but if she had the least idea that people could be so impertinent,’ and Phœbe’s cheeks glowed with shame and indignation, ‘she would only wish to go away as far as she could for fear of seeing any of them again. I am sure they were not gentlemen, Robin.’
‘A man must be supereminently a gentleman to respect a woman who does not make him do so,’ said Robert mournfully. ‘That Miss Charteris! Oh! that she were banished to Siberia!’
Phœbe meditated a few moments; then looking up, said, ‘I
beg your pardon, Robin, but it does strike me that, if you think that this kind of life is not good for Lucilla, it cannot be right to sacrifice your own higher prospects to enable her to continue it.’