"Dorothy ought not to stay here," he said.
"It is a pity," she answered, sighing, "for it increases our difficulties a hundredfold. I was hoping the time would come when we could take Martin to London, and introduce him there to such of your father's old friends who ought to know him, and who could understand the whole story. But it will not do for Dorothy to stay here much longer; and Martin would not improve alone with me, if I could stay, as he does with her. O Philip! I could almost wish, for your father's sake, that she could care for Martin."
"Impossible!" he ejaculated.
"Yes, you wise, blind boy," she replied, "it is impossible. If Martin could be trained into a perfect gentleman, it would still be impossible."
"Mother!" he exclaimed, the color mounting to his forehead as he turned away from her smiling eyes, "it is so short a time since Phyllis jilted me."
"If I am not mistaken," said Margaret, "Dorothy loved you before that."
"Loved me!" he repeated, "why! I was nothing to her. I had no eyes for her before you came to Venice; I saw no one but Phyllis. I could never presume to tell her I loved her, when she knows how infatuated I was with Phyllis."
"I judge only by appearances," said his mother, "but your father thinks as I do; and nothing could please your father more. She is already as dear to him as his own child. He has suffered more than words can tell, and greatly on your account, but he will feel that you have not lost all if you win Dorothy as your wife. I think the estate well lost if it saved you from an unhappy marriage."
"Oh, mother," he cried, "what a fool I was!"
"To be sure," she said smiling.