The vicar parried this common-sense thrust. “I know—since you press me so—I know I did guess some childish attachment might arise between you; I own I did not take much trouble to prevent it; but I have not particularly countenanced it; and, Elfride, how can you expect that I should now? It is impossible; no father in England would hear of such a thing.”
“But he is the same man, papa; the same in every particular; and how can he be less fit for me than he was before?”
“He appeared a young man with well-to-do friends, and a little property; but having neither, he is another man.”
“You inquired nothing about him?”
“I went by Hewby’s introduction. He should have told me. So should the young man himself; of course he should. I consider it a most dishonourable thing to come into a man’s house like a treacherous I-don’t-know-what.”
“But he was afraid to tell you, and so should I have been. He loved me too well to like to run the risk. And as to speaking of his friends on his first visit, I don’t see why he should have done so at all. He came here on business: it was no affair of ours who his parents were. And then he knew that if he told you he would never be asked here, and would perhaps never see me again. And he wanted to see me. Who can blame him for trying, by any means, to stay near me—the girl he loves? All is fair in love. I have heard you say so yourself, papa; and you yourself would have done just as he has—so would any man.”
“And any man, on discovering what I have discovered, would also do as I do, and mend my mistake; that is, get shot of him again, as soon as the laws of hospitality will allow.” But Mr. Swancourt then remembered that he was a Christian. “I would not, for the world, seem to turn him out of doors,” he added; “but I think he will have the tact to see that he cannot stay long after this, with good taste.”
“He will, because he’s a gentleman. See how graceful his manners are,” Elfride went on; though perhaps Stephen’s manners, like the feats of Euryalus, owed their attractiveness in her eyes rather to the attractiveness of his person than to their own excellence.
“Ay; anybody can be what you call graceful, if he lives a little time in a city, and keeps his eyes open. And he might have picked up his gentlemanliness by going to the galleries of theatres, and watching stage drawing-room manners. He reminds me of one of the worst stories I ever heard in my life.”
“What story was that?”