“You don’t know how much you might have in your power,” he said impressively. “I wonder,” he added, after a little pause, “I wonder if you would read some books I would like to lend you, Miss Methvyn.”
Cicely smiled. “I would read them,” she said, “but I think it would be better not.”
“Why so?”
“Because it would vex and disappoint you if I could not honestly say I liked them,” she replied. “I have no doubt I should like parts, and probably admire a great deal. But I fear it would not be the sort of liking and admiration you want. And I dislike seeming presumptuous.”
Then Mr. Hayle went his way. “I wonder if it is true that she is going to marry Fawcett,” he said to himself. “If it is so, in my opinion she will be thrown away upon him. A wife like that might strengthen one’s hands.”
But as he had long ago decided that with marrying and giving in marriage he and such as he had nothing to do, his spirit was not perturbed by the reflection.
[CHAPTER VI.]
LES PAPILLONS.
“La beauté,” reprit Riquet à la Houppe, “est unsi grand avantage qu’il doit tenir lieu de tout le reste; et, quand on le possède, je ne vois pas qu’il y ait rien qui puisse vous affliger beaucoup.”
Charles Perrault.