'Now read, "The Ascent from the Inferno."'
That she read: and also 'Soul and Brute,' another of his favourites.
He wanted more, and told her to read 'First Love—Last Love.'
'I fear I have not the tone of voice for love-poems,' Jenny said, returning the book to him.
'I'll read it,' said he.
He read with more impressiveness than effect. Lydiard's reading thrilled her: Beauchamp's insisted too much on particular lines. But it was worth while observing him. She saw him always as in a picture, remote from herself. His loftier social station and strange character precluded any of those keen suspicions by which women learn that a fire is beginning to glow near them.
'How I should like to have known your father!' he said. 'I don't wonder at Dr. Shrapnel's love of him. Yes, he was one of the great men of his day! and it's a higher honour to be of his blood than any that rank can give. You were ten years old when you lost him. Describe him to me.'
'He used to play with me like a boy,' said Jenny. She described her father from a child's recollection of him.
'Dr. Shrapnel declares he would have been one of the first surgeons in Europe: and he was one of the first of poets,' Beauchamp pursued with enthusiasm. 'So he was doubly great. I hold a good surgeon to be in the front rank of public benefactors—where they put rich brewers, bankers, and speculative manufacturers now. Well! the world is young. We shall alter that in time. Whom did your father marry?'
Jenny answered, 'My mother was the daughter of a London lawyer. She married without her father's approval of the match, and he left her nothing.'