'Why,—let me rather ask,—why must I find you for ever thus impenetrable, thus incomprehensible?—I will not, however, waste your patience. I see your eagerness to be gone.—Yet, in defiance of all the rigour of your scruples, you must bear to hear me avow, in my total ignorance of their cause, that I feel it impossible utterly to renounce all distant hope of clearer prospects.—How, then, can I quietly submit to see you enter into a career of public life, subversive—perhaps—to me, of even any eventual amelioration?'
Ellis blushed deeply as she answered, 'If I depended, Sir, upon you,—if you were responsible for my actions; or if your own fame, or name, or sentiments were involved in my conduct ... then you would do right, if such is your opinion, to stamp my project with the stigma of your disapprobation, and to warn me of the loss of your countenance:—but, till then, permit me to say, that the business which calls me away has the first claim to my time.'
She opened the door.
'One moment,' cried he, earnestly, 'I conjure you!—The hurry of alarm, the certainty that delay would make every effort abortive; have precipitated me into the use of expressions that may have offended you. Forgive them, I entreat! and do not judge me to be so narrow minded; or so insensible to the enchantment of talents, and the witchery of genius; as not to feel as much respect for the character, where it is worthy, as admiration for the abilities, of those artists whose profession it is to give delight to the public. Had I first known you as a public performer, and seen you in the same situations which have shewn me your worth, I must have revered you as I do at this instant: I must have been devoted to you with the same unalterable attachment: but then, also,—if you would have indulged me with a hearing,—must I not have made it my first petition, that your accomplishments should be reserved for the resources of your leisure, and the happiness of your friends, at your own time, and your own choice? Would you have branded such a desire as pride? or would you not rather have allowed it to be called by that word, which your own every action, every speech, every look bring perpetually to mind, propriety?'
Ellis sighed: 'Alas!' she said, 'my own repugnance to this measure makes me but too easily conceive the objections to which it may be liable! and if you, so singularly liberal, if even you—'
She stopt; but Harleigh, not less encouraged by a phrase thus begun, than if she had proceeded, warmly continued.
'If then, in a case such as I have presumed to suppose, to have withdrawn you from the public would not have been wrong, how can it be faulty, upon the same principles, and with the same intentions, to endeavour, with all my might, to turn you aside from such a project?—I see you are preparing to tell me that I argue upon premises to which you have not concurred. Suffer me, nevertheless, to add a few words, in explanation of what else may seem presumption, or impertinence: I have hinted that this plan might cloud my dearest hopes; imagine not, thence, that my prejudices upon this subject are invincible: no! but I have Relations who have never deserved to forfeit my consideration;—and these—not won, like me, by the previous knowledge of your virtues.—'
Ellis would repeatedly have interrupted him, but he would not be stopped.
'Hear me on,' he continued, 'I beseech you! By my plainness only I can shew my sincerity. For these Relations, then, permit me to plead. It is true, I am independent: my actions are under no control; but these are ties from which we are never emancipated; ties which cling to our nature, and which, though voluntary, are imperious, and cannot be broken or relinquished, without self-reproach; ties formed by the equitable laws of fellow-feeling; which bind us to our family, which unites us with our friends; and which, by our own expectations, teach us what is due to our connexions. Ah, then, if ever brighter prospects may open to my eyes, let me see them sullied, by mists hovering over the approbation of those with whom I am allied!'
'How just,' cried Ellis, trying to force a smile, 'yet how useless is this reasoning! I cannot combat sentiments in which I concur; yet I can change nothing in a plan to which they must have no reference! I am sorry to appear ungrateful, where I am only steady; but I have nothing new to say; and must entreat you to dispense with fruitless repetitions. Already, I fear, I am beyond the hour of my engagement.'