“You will never permit yourself to love any one not of your own rank, I know. But suppose that, in spite of yourself, you should find your affections drawn towards some poor devil, a person without a name, without a penny—Christian Waldo, for instance—would you not be extremely mortified, and consider it your duty to stifle your inclinations?”
“Christian Waldo!” said Margaret. “Why Christian Waldo? You choose a very strange person as an example!”
“Extremely so, and I do it on purpose. When one proceeds by an antithesis—But come; this is what I mean. Suppose that this Christian Waldo—whom I do not know at all—really possesses the courage, the intelligence, the generosity that have just been attributed to him here; and in addition to his other endowments, the poverty which must be the faithful attendant of his wanderings; and a name which, I presume, he does not claim in virtue of any old parchments.”
“And with his death’s head—”
“No, without his death’s head. Well, suppose that you had no choice of marriage, except between him and the Baron de Waldemora—”
“My choice would be very easily made. I would not marry at all!”
“Unless, of course, it should turn out that Christian’s mask concealed a young and handsome prince, who was obliged to conceal himself for reasons of state?”
“A fine idea that is!” said Margaret; “another Czarewitch Ivan escaped out of his prison, or another Philip III. escaped from his assassins!”
“In that case, apocryphal or not, he would find grace in your eyes.”
“What do you want me to say? An Italian buffoon is really not a good standard of comparison, if you are in earnest.”