“What thoughts? A young lady in Jane’s position need have no thoughts that can give her any trouble. I hope that even in these revolutionary times, when everything is going to pieces, the house of Billings is still sufficiently secure for that.”
“Yes, yes; there is no doubt on that question. Jane has no doubt,” the Duchess said, correcting herself. “But there are problems, you know, which occupy the mind. It is a revolutionary age, as you say, and even young women are not exempt. Besides, if you will let me say so, by the time a girl has come to be eight-and-twenty, she often begins to feel, you know—that to be only her father’s daughter is not quite enough for her—that she wants some sort of standing of her own.”
“Do you mean to tell me that such thoughts as these have ever entered the mind of Jane?” said the Duke, severely. “My love, I put great faith in you in matters quite within your sphere—— But Jane, my daughter!—--”
“I hope you will allow that she is my daughter as well,” the Duchess said, with the half laugh, half rage natural to a woman long accustomed to deal with an impracticable man. She was obliged to laugh at his serious contempt of her, lest she should do worse.
The Duke waved his hand. “Yes, yes,” he said, in the tone of a man yielding to an unreasonable child. “To be sure, in a way, we do not dispute that. But I am certain,” he added, “that you know better than to resist the claims of race. Jane is not so much your daughter, or even mine, as she is the daughter of the race of Altamonts; and in that capacity you may allow, my love, great as are your claims to respect as her mother, that I may be supposed to understand her best.”
The exasperation with which the Duchess listened to this speech may be understood; but it was not the first by a great many, and she made no revelation of her feelings. On the contrary, she made use of his solemn vanity with a craft which the exigencies of her position had developed in her.
“You must give me the benefit of your superior insight,” she said quite calmly, without any indication of satire in her tone. “Now that you have leisure to give your consideration to family matters, as you could not be expected to do in town:—tell me what you think. My impression is, that she has begun to think of the future. I was her mother when I was her age. She has been very much admired and sought after.”
“Naturally,” the Duke said, with a wave of his hand.
“And I have a feeling that there is a—preference, if I may call it so—an inclination, perhaps—dawning in her mind. To lose her would be a terrible deprivation: still,” the Duchess said, “I do not suppose it is in your mind to prevent her from marrying.”
“To prevent her from—— You surely have the most curious way of putting things. There is nothing I desire more truly—when a suitable match can be found.”