“I don’t exactly see the connection,” said Sir Edward; “your grandfather’s marriage was a good while ago.”
“Yes, when prejudices were a great deal stronger than now. Though they exist in some places, I have the strongest reason to believe that among the best people they are no longer held as they used to be. Eva Milton married a Manchester man that had no education to speak of at all.”
“Are you arguing the question on abstract principles?” said Sir Edward, who was nursing his foot, and looking half-amused, half-bored. His companion was too anxious to be able to judge what this look meant, and he was sadly afraid of irritating the authority in whose hands his happiness lay.
“Oh, no, not at all,” he cried, anxiously: “I wanted to remind you, sir, that it was not the first time that such things had been done. It’s no abstract question: all that I look forward to in life depends on it. I am not badly off, as I can prove to you if you will let me. I could keep my wife, if I had the good fortune to—to—make sure of that—surrounded by everything that belongs to her sphere. There should be nothing wanting in that way. I could make settlements that would be, I think, satisfactory.”
“Is that how you talked to Ally?” said Sir Edward, a perception of the humor of the situation breaking in. “How astonished she must have been!” His mind was so unusually at ease that he was ready to smile even in the midst of an important arrangement like this.
“To Ally!” cried Rochford, startled by the reference, and in his confusion unable to see how much it was in his favor. “No, sir,” he said, eagerly, “not a word! Do you think I would fret her delicate mind with any such suggestions? No. She is far above all that. She knows nothing about it. I may not be worthy of her, but at least I know how to appreciate her. She has heard nothing like this from me.”
“But I suppose you must think that what you did say was not without effect, and that the appreciation is not all on your side? You don’t mind fretting my delicate mind, it appears,” said Sir Edward; and then, in a sharper tone, “How far has this matter gone?”
“Sir Edward,” stammered the young man: his anxiety stupefied instead of quickening his senses; he seemed able to perceive nothing that was not against him, “I—I—”
“You don’t give me very much information,” repeated the father. “Can’t you tell me how far this matter has gone?”
Rochford was a keen man of business. He was not to be overpowered by the most powerful judge or the most aggravating jury. He was in the habit of stating very clearly what he wanted to say. But now he stood before this tribunal stammering, without a word to say for himself. “Sir Edward,” he repeated, “if I had taken time to think I should have felt that you ought to have been consulted first. But in an unguarded moment—my—my feelings got the better of me. I saw her unexpectedly alone. And then,” he added with melancholy energy, “I thought, I confess, that if I could be of use, if I could find and bring back—”