“This certainly is the germ of an idea,” said Hamilton in meditation. “I will consider all you say most carefully. I am interested in Emma’s wonderful qualities. I would willingly aid where I can. I am at one with you in the notion that we could not cast her off without assistance. It would be unworthy. But, come!—be frank with me, Charles. Is there any difficulty in her disposition that I don’t comprehend? These tempers? And is she vain? Frivolous? Mercenary?”
For an answer Greville drew her last letter from his pocket and laid it in Sir William’s hands.
“I received your kind letter last night, and, my dearest Greville, I want words to express how happy it made me. For I thought I was like a lost sheep and every one had forsook me. I was eight days very ill, but am a great deal better for your kind instructing letter and I own the justice of your remarks. You shall have your appartment to yourself. You shall read, wright, or sett still, just as you pleas, for I shall think myself happy to be under the same roof with Greville and do all I can to make it agreable without disturbing him in any pursuits. For your absence has taught me that I ought to think myself happy if I was within a mile of you. You shall find me good, kind, gentle, affectionate and everything you wish me to do I will do. O Greville, to think it is nine weeks since I saw you. I think I shall die with the pleasure of seeing you. Oh, how I long to see you.”
“Is this a spoilt, capricious beauty?” says he, when Sir William had finished it.
“No, a tender, womanly, submissive charmer. But it frightens me another way. Greville, she will never leave you.”
“She will, if we can impress upon her that it is to my advantage. She never will for herself. Poor soul!—moving, I own!”
Greville touched one of the fundamentals in this remark and did not know it. Sir William’s warmer heart appreciated it.
“We must make it as easy for her as we can. Certainly I should have no objection to her being under my protection—”
Something in the phrase made him uncomfortable. He stopped with a shade of embarrassment, then continued, “I mean I will willingly oversee the question of putting the mother out and of lending my influence to advance Emma’s music and its results. On these points I shall write more fully when I have considered, and meanwhile I advise you wean her gradually. Separate slowly, imperceptibly.”
“I have begun. I conditioned strictly for the parlour for my own use. I shall sleep frequently in town. Depend upon my showing every consideration. You can count on that. Do not be uneasy.”