“Yes, sir—the fourth in the series.”
“Who accompanied you?”
“Aunt Martha and Lord Frothingham.”
There was a pause, then Mr. Allerton coughed slightly and said: “How do you like the young Englishman, Cecilia?”
Cecilia lifted her eyes in a frightened glance that dropped instantly before her father’s solemn, rigid gaze. “He’s—well-mannered and agreeable,” she replied. “I like him as much as one can like a foreigner.”
“I’m surprised at your speaking of him as a foreigner. He—in fact, he seems to me quite like one of our own young men, except that he lives upon a higher plane, and shows none of the degeneration, the vulgarisation, I may say, with which our young men have become infected through the overindulgence of their parents and contact with New York.”
Another long pause, and when Allerton spoke there was a suggestion of combating opposition in his voice. “I have been much impressed with the young man. Titles are very deceptive. As you know, I have no regard for them, or for the system which produces and maintains them. But, his title aside, the young man comes of a family that has the right sort of blood. You must have noticed the evidences of it in his face, and in his manners and character?”
As the statement was put interrogatively, Cecilia knew her duty too well not to reply. “He has a strongly featured face,” she said. “But it seemed to me to indicate rather a race that had been great, but was now—small.”
Allerton frowned. “I am sure that, properly established, he would have a distinguished career.” He paused, then went on in a tone Cecelia understood and paled before: “It would be most satisfactory to me to have my daughter married to him. I should regard it as satisfactory in every way. You would be established in an honourable and dignified position. You would exert in society and the wider world the influence to which your birth and breeding entitle you. You would maintain the traditions of your family and strengthen his.”
Cecilia shivered several times as he was speaking; but when she spoke her low voice was firm. “But, father, you know my heart is with Stanley.”