"No, it is not—I have a hundred objections—it is objectionable from every point. I object to her most decidedly and absolutely. You shall not marry this American girl without family or station, and of whom you know absolutely nothing—with whom you have not been acquainted four weeks. Oh, it is absurd—it is ridiculous—it is the most preposterous folly I ever heard of in my life."
His smile left his face—a frown came instead. His lips set, he looked at her with a face of invincible determination.
"Is this all?" he demanded. "I will answer your objections when I have thoroughly heard them. I am my own master—but—that much is due to you."
"I tell you she is beneath you—beneath you!" Lady Helena said vehemently. "The Catherons have always married well—into ducal families. Your grandmother—my sister—was, as I am, the daughter of a marquis."
"And my mother was the daughter of a soap-boiler," he said with bitterness. "Don't let us forget that."
"Why do you speak to me of her? I can't bear it. You know I cannot. You do well to taunt me with the plebeian blood in your veins—you, of all men alive. Oh! why did you ever see this designing girl? Why did she ever come between us?"
She was working herself up to a pitch of passionate excitement, quite incomprehensible to her nephew, and as displeasing as it was incomprehensible.
"When you call her designing, Lady Helena," he said, in slow, angry tones, "you go a little too far. In no way has Miss Darrell tried to win me—'tis the one drawback to my perfect happiness now that she does not love me as I love her. She has told me so frankly and bravely. But it will come. I feel that such love as mine must win a return. For the rest, I deny that she is beneath me; in all things—beauty, intellect, goodness—she is my superior. She is the daughter of a scholar and a gentleman; her affection would honor the best man on earth. I deny that I am too young—I deny that she is my inferior—I deny even your right, Lady Helena, to speak disparagingly of her. And, in conclusion, I say, that it is my unalterable determination to marry Edith Darrell at the earliest possible hour that I can prevail upon her to fix our wedding-day."
She looked at him; the unalterable determination he spoke of was printed in every line of his set face.
"I might have known it," she said, with suppressed bitterness; "he is his father's son. The same obstinacy—the same refusal to listen to all warning. Sooner or later I knew it must come, but not so soon as this."