“And so we make up a pretty dream!” interjected Georgiana. “The Austrian shot, I think, will be fired by one who is now in the Austrian service, or who will soon be.”
“Wilfrid?” Emilia called out. “No; that is what I am going to stop. Why did I not tell you so at first? But I never know what I say or do when I am with you, and everything seems chance. I want to see him to prevent him from doing that. I can.”
“Why should you?” asked Georgiana; and one to whom the faces of the two had been displayed at that moment would have pronounced them a hostile couple.
“Why should I prevent him?” Emilia doled out the question slowly, and gave herself no further thought of replying to it.
Apparently Georgiana understood the significance of this odd silence: she was perhaps touched by it. She said, “You feel that you have a power over him. You wish to exercise it. Never mind wherefore. If you do—if you try, and succeed—if, by the aid of this love presupposed to exist, you win him to what you require of him—do you honestly think the love is then immediately to be dropped?”
Emilia meditated. She caught up her voice hastily. “I think so. Yes. I hope so. I mean it to be.”
“With a noble lover, Emilia. Not with a selfish one. In showing him the belief you have in your power over him, you betray that he has power over you. And it is to no object. His family, his position, his prospects—all tell you that he cannot marry you if he would. And he is, besides, engaged—”
“Let her suffer!” Emilia's eyes flashed.
“Ah!” and Georgiana thought, “Have I come upon your nature at last?”
However it might be, Emilia was determined to show it.