“But she wouldn’t be marrying the Union,” I said.
“Not if she married you,” he said, “who are merely the Vice-President. But if she married me, Augustus, it would be different. It would become the sacrifice of the whole Union.”
“But, my dear Ezekiel,” I said, “ought you to sacrifice the whole Union without consulting all its members?”
“Oh, but I should,” he said, “I certainly should, and any that objected I should ask to resign.”
I reflected for a moment. Admirable as was his character, it was in many respects singularly bigoted, while his intelligence, sometimes so brilliant, was at others inferior even to that of his sisters. Since the burial of his parents, too, a couple of years previously, and the consequent augmentation of his own income, I had been conscious in him of a rather unexpected and somewhat disturbing vein of arrogance. I therefore decided, for the present at any rate, that the wisest policy was one of postponement.
“But surely in that case,” I said, “they should have an opportunity of seeing her.”
“Oh, of course,” he said, “of course.”
“Before they married her, I mean—as an Union.”
“Oh, certainly,” he said, “certainly.”
Then his hair parted for a moment, revealing his teeth.