“Have you never suspected it, dear uncle?” Felix inquired. “Well, that proves how discreet I have been. Yes, I thought you wouldn’t like it.”
“It is very serious, Felix,” said Mr. Wentworth.
“You think it’s an abuse of hospitality!” exclaimed Felix, smiling again.
“Of hospitality?—an abuse?” his uncle repeated very slowly.
“That is what Felix said to me,” said Charlotte, conscientiously.
“Of course you think so; don’t defend yourself!” Felix pursued. “It is an abuse, obviously; the most I can claim is that it is perhaps a pardonable one. I simply fell head over heels in love; one can hardly help that. Though you are Gertrude’s progenitor I don’t believe you know how attractive she is. Dear uncle, she contains the elements of a singularly—I may say a strangely—charming woman!”
“She has always been to me an object of extreme concern,” said Mr. Wentworth. “We have always desired her happiness.”
“Well, here it is!” Felix declared. “I will make her happy. She believes it, too. Now hadn’t you noticed that?”
“I had noticed that she was much changed,” Mr. Wentworth declared, in a tone whose unexpressive, unimpassioned quality appeared to Felix to reveal a profundity of opposition. “It may be that she is only becoming what you call a charming woman.”
“Gertrude, at heart, is so earnest, so true,” said Charlotte, very softly, fastening her eyes upon her father.