‘Miss Dacre! pardon this prolonged intrusion; forgive this renewed discourse. But let me only hope that a more favoured rival is the cause of my despair, and I will thank you——’
‘My Lord Duke,’ she said, looking up with a faint blush, but with a flashing eye, and in an audible and even energetic tone, ‘the question you ask is neither fair nor manly; but, as you choose to press me, I will say that it requires no recollection of a third person to make me decline the honour which you intended me.’
‘Miss Dacre! you speak in anger, almost in bitterness. Believe me,’ he added, rather with an air of pique, ‘had I imagined from your conduct towards me that I was an object of dislike, I would have spared you this inconvenience and myself this humiliation.’
‘At Castle Dacre, my conduct to all its inmates is the same. The Duke of St. James, indeed, hath both hereditary and personal claims to be considered here as something better than a mere inmate; but your Grace has elected to dissolve all connection with our house, and I am not desirous of assisting you in again forming any.’
‘Harsh words, Miss Dacre!’
‘Harsher truth, my Lord Duke,’ said Miss Dacre, rising from her seat, and twisting a pen with agitated energy. ‘You have prolonged this interview, not I. Let it end, for I am not skilful in veiling my mind; and I should regret, here at least, to express what I have hitherto succeeded in concealing.’
‘It cannot end thus,’ said his Grace: ‘let me, at any rate, know the worst. You have, if not too much kindness, at least too much candour, to part sol’ ‘I am at a loss to understand,’ said Miss Dacre, ‘what other object our conversation can have for your Grace than to ascertain my feelings, which I have already declared more than once, upon a point which you have already more than once urged. If I have not been sufficiently explicit or sufficiently clear, let me tell you, sir, that nothing but the request of a parent whom I adore would have induced me even to speak to the person who had dared to treat him with contempt.’ ‘Miss Dacre!’
‘You are moved, or you affect to be moved. ‘Tis well: if a word from a stranger can thus affect you, you may be better able to comprehend the feelings of that person whose affections you have so long outraged; your equal in blood, Duke of St. James, your superior in all other respects.’
‘Beautiful being!’ said his Grace, advancing, falling on his knee, and seizing her hand. ‘Pardon, pardon, pardon! Like your admirable sire, forgive; cast into oblivion all remembrance of my fatal youth. Is not your anger, is not this moment, a bitter, an utter expiation for all my folly, all my thoughtless, all my inexperienced folly; for it was no worse? On my knees, and in the face of Heaven, let me pray you to be mine. I have staked my happiness upon this venture. In your power is my fate. On you it depends whether I shall discharge my duty to society, to the country to which I owe so much, or whether I shall move in it without an aim, an object, or a hope. Think, think only of the sympathy of our dispositions; the similarity of our tastes. Think, think only of the felicity that might be ours. Think of the universal good we might achieve! Is there anything that human reason could require that we could not command? any object which human mind could imagine that we could not obtain? And, as for myself, I swear that I will be the creature of your will. Nay, nay! oaths are mockery, vows are idle! Is it possible to share existence with you, beloved girl! without watching for your every wish, without—’
‘My Lord Duke, this must end. You do not recommend yourself to me by this rhapsody. What do you know of me, that you should feel all this? I may be different from what you expected; that is all. Another week, and another woman may command a similar effusion. I do not believe you to be insincere. There would be more hope for you if you were. You act from impulse, and not from principle. This is your best excuse for your conduct to my father. It is one that I accept, but which will certainly ever prevent me from becoming your wife. Farewell!’ ‘Nay, nay! let us not part in enmity!’ ‘Enmity and friendship are strong words; words that are much abused. There is another, which must describe our feelings towards the majority of mankind, and mine towards you. Substitute for enmity indifference.’