For when or how had he, with no such allowance for cousinly feeling or partiality as Mrs. de Burgh—when or how had he, save occasionally by a few slighting, sneering innuendoes, such as not unfrequently defeat their own purpose, by strengthening and promoting in the generous mind of youth the germs of true attachment which previously have been engendered; how had he—save by those careless and ill judged means—ever warned, cautioned, or even given his young relative to understand, ere it was too late, that there was in the favoured cousin of his wife, and his own cheerful tolerated guest, anything either reprehensible in himself, or objectionable in their attachment, or even union? No, absorbed in his own selfish interests, his own pursuits, he had gone his way "to his farm or to his merchandize," and never given his mind the trouble to think or care whether much might not be doing which it would require more than a few strongly expressed adjurations and highly coloured representations on his part to undo—which, in short, must cause him practically to prove
"He might as soon go kindle fire with snow
As seek to quench the fire of love with words."
He probably thought all this during the short silence which succeeded Mary's last address; and had at length nothing better to say in reply, and that with some conscious impatience, than—
"Oh, my dear Mary, as to this view of the matter, in the present state of the world, it would be impossible to shut one's doors or turn one's back upon many a person, whom we should on the other hand be very sorry to see more closely associated with those for whom we feel interest or affection."
"But of what, then, do you accuse Eugene?" Mary inquired, still with the quiet confidence of one whose faith and trust are yet unshaken. And Mr. de Burgh was again at fault.
There is a natural code of honour subsisting between men of any generosity of mind, which sensitively withholds them from a direct exposure of those reprehensible points of conduct or of character for which they have not openly and to the face of the offender testified their blame or abhorrence. And to have now coolly set to work, and laid before the eyes of Mary facts or fancies concerning the man with whom he had ever lived on terms of friendly intercourse, and so deprive him, as was at least his desired purpose, of the blessing which, perhaps for some good end, had been assigned him; all this assumed—when thus by Mary's question brought so directly to the point—an aspect somewhat of a dastardly and serpent-like character.
So, rising from his seat and taking a turn across the room, as if by movement to assist himself in this dilemma, Louis de Burgh replied:
"Accuse! why that is rather a strong term to use, Mary. I should not like to accuse any man, or even to prejudice you against Trevor; but still, without particularising any enormities, there must be many things in the life and character of a man, hitherto so entirely given to the world and its pursuits, which must make him in the eyes of many besides myself, not exactly the person worthy to become the husband of my pure and gentle-hearted cousin."
Mary drooped her eyelids sadly and thoughtfully. Perhaps the recollection of Mr. Temple, and all that he had brought forward against this evil world, of which she now heard her lover so decidedly pronounced the votary, passed before her mind; but of the real nature or extent of that evil she could form but so obscure and vague an idea, that in her present state of feeling it only awoke in her heart a more sorrowful interest, to think that it was Eugene's fate to be exposed to its dread and grievous influence.
"Perhaps you think, as women so often flatter themselves," Mr. de Burgh continued, as she uttered no comment on his words, "that the power of your love will suffice to reform all that may be amiss."