"It seems to make you hate me, John, which I don't think I have deserved."
"Oh, no, I don't hate you. It's a consequence, I suppose, of use and wont. It makes little difference to me——"
She gave him another look which he did not understand—a wistful look, appealing to something, he did not know what—to his ridiculous partiality, he thought, and that stubborn domestic affection to which it was of so little importance what she did, as long as she was Elinor; and then she said with a woman's soft, endless pertinacity, "Then you think I may go?"
He sprang from his seat with that impatient despair which is equally characteristic of the man. "Go!" he said, "when you are called upon by law to vindicate a man's character, and that man your husband! I ought not to be surprised at anything with my experience, but, Elinor, you take away my breath."
She only smiled, giving him once more that look of appeal.
"How can you think of it?" he said. "The subpœna is enough to keep any reasonable being, besides the other motive. You must not budge. I should feel my own character involved, as well as yours, if after consulting me on the subject you were guilty of an evasion after all."
"It would not be your fault, John."
"Elinor! you are mad—it must not be done," he cried. "Don't defy me, I am capable of informing upon you, and having you stopped—by force—if you do not give this idea up."
"By force!" she said, with her nostril dilating. "I shall go, of course, if I am threatened."
"Then Philip must not go. Do you know what has happened in the family to which he belongs, and must belong, whether you like it or not? Do you know—that the boy may be Lord Lomond before the week is out? that his uncle is dying, and that your husband is the heir?"