“And low-born,” added Mark, as though the words scorched his throat while finding utterance.
A flush of scarlet spread itself over Lotte’s features. She threw up her head with a haughty and indignant air, and her short upper lip trembled with an expression of offended pride.
She was about to utter a hasty reply, but she checked herself, disengaged herself from Mark’s encircling arms, and walked in silence to the further end of the room. She hid her face in her handkerchief; for a minute her whole frame seemed convulsed.
Mark watched her with eyes half-blinded by scalding tears, and it was only the endeavour to recover the power of speaking clearly that prevented him at once catching her in his arms, bid her banish from her mind all she had heard, and to consent, in spite of what his father had said, to become his bride at the earliest moment possible.
He knew not Lotte yet.
She was the first to recover calmness, and she returned to where he was standing.
“I understand your father’s weakness by my own.” she said. “I pardon the pain it has given me, for I am reminded, by my own poor indignation at being termed low-born, how natural his anger would be at the thought of one so humble as myself being elevated to his side, and made a member of his family, in opposition to all those prejudices of which station and affluence are so fruitful. Well, Heaven knows best. I bow to its decree. The dream, only too glorious to be realised, was sweet, very, very sweet, while it lasted, and I wake once more to be plain Lotte Clinton, the needle-worker——”
“To be my wife, Lotte,” cried Mark, passionately; “my wife, my adored, my honoured wife, Lotte——”
“Oh! Mark,” she said, in pleading earnestness, “remember our contract.”
“I remember, Lotte,” he said, “that I am human, that I have my passions and my failings, as others of my sex; but I hope I have, too, that broader view of life that makes virtue and worth the true nobility, and that I can appreciate it when it comes before me, as it has in you, Lotte. I have all my life—at least so long as I remember—lived in a sphere in which worth, and amiability, and virtue, shine most because they are surrounded by the worst temptations to which the higher qualifications can be subjected, and when they maintain themselves unsullied they are, in my eyes, the true and most fitting emblems of a real nobility. All I hope to find in woman I believe dwells in your clear soul, Lotte. I, feeling how rich you are in sterling virtues, ask no more, for you are wealthy enough in that. Well, what influence can the intemperate words of my father have hereafter upon my happiness? I shall ever love you. It shall be my study to retain your attachment; and, for the rest, it is all empty pomp and pride, which we can be very, very happy without.”