Had she stopped there, it would have been all very well; for her brother, in his dry, unpleasant way, was just about to say that he was particularly engaged, and the matter might have dropped. But Lady Fleetwood was a terrible person for standing upon the defensive. She did not at all like the very insinuation of trifling; and she added, unluckily--
"Of course, what I wanted to say was important, or I should not have asked you to come, and should not have come here."
"Well, what is it?" asked Mr. Scriven. "I suppose you have got into some important scrape, and want me to get you out of it."
"Not at all," answered Lady Fleetwood, with an indignant air: "I wished merely to speak with you, not about myself, but about Maria and Colonel Middleton."
"Oh!" said Mr. Scriven, not well pleased at the collocation of his niece's name with that of an object of antipathy; "pray, what has Maria to do with Colonel Middleton, or Colonel Middleton with Maria?"
Now, his bitter, sneering way at times roused even Lady Fleetwood into something like resistance. But, unfortunately, Mr. Scriven knew that such was the case, and knew that in her fits of indignation his sister would tell him all he wanted to hear, more plainly, straightforwardly, and concisely, than she would under any other circumstances--that she was thrown off her guard, in short. He therefore occasionally irritated her upon calculation, for Mr. Scriven was a great calculator. In the present instance, the way in which he put the question, more than the question itself, induced her to reply--
"Now, my dear brother, if you're inclined to hear patiently and act reasonably, I will go on; for I came here with the purpose of persuading you not to struggle against what you cannot resist, but to let Maria seek her own happiness in her own----"
"Now, my dear sister," answered Mr. Scriven, in a somewhat mocking tone, "I am inclined to hear patiently if the story is told briefly, and to act reasonably however it is told; for I think you ought to know that I always act upon reason, and that reason is my sole guide. Thank God, I have neither imagination, nor caprice, nor fine feelings, nor delicate sentiments, nor any of the trash with which your very tender and extremely sensitive people befool themselves. Reason is the only guide I ever applied to, and I don't think she is likely to leave me now. As to letting Maria seek her own happiness in her own way, I have no means of preventing her. If she is going to make a fool of herself, I shall tell her so; and having told her once, I have done my duty, and there the matter ends. She is of age. She can do what she pleases; and I have only to do the best that I can to prevent anything she does from affecting her more injuriously than it otherwise might. Now, then, our ground is clear; what's the matter?"
Lady Fleetwood hesitated, but it was too late to retreat.
"Why," she said--and be it remarked, that whenever woman makes use of the little word "why," as an expletive, she knows she is coming on difficult ground--"Why, I cannot help seeing--that is to say, fancying--that is to say, believing--that Maria has a partiality for Colonel Middleton," said Lady Fleetwood; and during her stammering enunciation of this proposition Mr. Scriven sat provokingly silent and quiet. He did not help her even by a look.