"You were very condescending," she said, in a quiet, very demure little voice.
"Now, you wrong us—you do, indeed, Miss West," he cried, hotly. "We said the kindest things of you. You must own that Lieutenant De Vere paid you the highest compliment man can pay to woman."
A beautiful blush rose into the fair face, and her eyes drooped a moment.
"While we are upon the subject," he continued, hastily, "let me speak a word for my friend, Miss West. He is quite in earnest in his love for you, and you would do well to listen to his suit. He is in every way an unexceptionable suitor. There is everything in favor of him, personally, and he is of good birth, is the heir to a title, and last, but not least, has ten thousand a year of his own."
"Enough to buy him a more fitting bride than Mrs. West's niece," she said, with some bitterness, but more mirth, in her voice.
"Who could be more fitting than the one he has chosen?" asked Lancaster.
"It would be a mésalliance," she said, with her eyes full on his face as she quoted his words.
"In the world's eyes—yes," he answered, quietly. "But if you love him and he loves you, you need not care for the world," he said; and he felt the whole force of the words as he spoke them. He said to himself that any man who could afford to snap his fingers at fortune and marry Leonora West would be blessed.
She listened to his words calmly, and with an air of thoughtfulness, as if she were weighing them in her mind.