“Dr. Shrapnel’s favourite! I must try to read him.”
“He reads Dante?” Cecilia threw a stress on the august name; and it was manifest that she cared not for the answer.
Contemptuous exclusiveness could not go farther.
“He is a man of cultivation,” Beauchamp said cursorily, trying to avoid dissension, but in vain. “I wish I were half as well instructed, and the world half as charitable as he!—You ask me if I shall admit my sight to be imperfect. Yes; when you prove to me that priests and landlords are willing to do their duty by the people in preference to their churches and their property: but will you ever shake off prejudice?”
Here was opposition sounding again. Cecilia mentally reproached Dr. Shrapnel for it.
“Indeed, Nevil, really, must not—may I not ask you this?—must not every one feel the evil spell of some associations? And Dante and Dr. Shrapnel!”
“You don’t know him, Cecilia.”
“I saw him yesterday.”
“You thought him too tall?”
“I thought of his character.”