"Let us give it up to them," said Lady Judith to Richard. "You and I never will make so delightful and beautifully balanced a world of it."
Richard appeared to have grown perfectly willing to give everything up to the fair face, his bridal Hesper.
Next day Lucy had to act the coward anew, and, as she did so, her heart sank to see how painfully it affected him that she should hesitate to go with him to his father. He was patient, gentle; he sat down by her side to appeal to her reason, and used all the arguments he could think of to persuade her.
"If we go together and make him see us both: if he sees he has nothing to be ashamed of in you—rather everything to be proud of; if you are only near him, you will not have to speak a word, and I'm certain—as certain as that I live—that in a week we shall be settled happily at Raynham. I know my father so well, Lucy. Nobody knows him but I."
Lucy asked whether Mr. Harley did not.
"Adrian? Not a bit. Adrian only knows a part of people, Lucy; and not the best part."
Lucy was disposed to think more highly of the object of her conquest.
"Is it he that has been frightening you, Lucy?"
"No, no, Richard; oh, dear no;" she cried, and looked at him more tenderly because she was not quite truthful.
"He doesn't know my father at all," said Richard. But Lucy had another opinion of the wise youth, and secretly maintained it. She could not be won to imagine the baronet a man of human mould, generous, forgiving, full of passionate love at heart, as Richard tried to picture him, and thought him, now that he beheld him again through Adrian's embassy. To her he was that awful figure, shrouded by the midnight. "Why are you so harsh?" she had heard Richard cry more than once. She was sure that Adrian must be right.