“I should tell you, Signor Mattei, that I am in all respects my own master, and quite independent of everyone. I am not afraid that my mother will not give Mdlle. Mattei a welcome; and of my own feelings, I assure you, sir, they are most—most strong. I love her, and I hope I shall make her happy—happier than she can be in a profession to which she is so unsuited.”
Hugh was a good speaker, and generally said what he had to say on all public and private occasions with perfect fluency and distinctness; but his eloquence foiled him now, and he coloured up and looked entreatingly at Signor Mattei as he made this false step.
“Unsuited to her profession, signor! unsuited to her profession! Do you mean to insult my daughter?”
“I mean that the profession is unsuited to her,” said Hugh, not mending matters.
“Signor, she has been dedicated to my beloved art from her earliest years. Music is her vocation, as in a lesser—I am proud to say in a lesser—degree it is mine.”
Hugh was not naturally conciliatory; and to listen patiently to what he considered such nonsense, uttered with a flash of the eyes that proved its sincerity, jarred upon him so much that there was as much annoyance as entreaty in his voice as he answered:
“I venture to set myself up as a rival to your art, and I ask you for—Violante. Indeed, I don’t think she will regret the fame she gives up.”
Hugh was so sure that it was better for Violante to marry him, an English gentleman, than to sing at all the operas in Europe, he felt that he was making so good an offer, and yet he wanted her so much, that the humility born of passionate desire conquered his sense of his own merits, and he finished pleadingly:
“If I can help it she never shall.”
“Signor, my daughter is already promised, and the arrangements for her marriage will shortly be begun.”