‘Is that really the fact?’ said Sol, becoming quite shaken. ‘I had no thought that such a thing could be possible!’
‘It is imminent.’
‘Father has told me that she has lately got to know some nobleman; but I never supposed there could be any meaning in that.’
‘You were altogether wrong,’ said Mountclere, leaning back in his chair and looking at Sol steadily. ‘Do you feel it to be a matter upon which you will congratulate her?’
‘A very different thing!’ said Sol vehemently. ‘Though he is your brother, sir, I must say this, that I would rather she married the poorest man I know.’
‘Why?’
‘From what my father has told me of him, he is not—a more desirable brother-in-law to me than I shall be in all likelihood to him. What business has a man of that character to marry Berta, I should like to ask?’
‘That’s what I say,’ returned Mountclere, revealing his satisfaction at Sol’s estimate of his noble brother: it showed that he had calculated well in coming here. ‘My brother is getting old, and he has lived strangely: your sister is a highly respectable young lady.’
‘And he is not respectable, you mean? I know he is not. I worked near Enckworth once.’
‘I cannot say that,’ returned Mountclere. Possibly a certain fraternal feeling repressed a direct assent: and yet this was the only representation which could be expected to prejudice the young man against the wedding, if he were such an one as the visitor supposed Sol to be—a man vulgar in sentiment and ambition, but pure in his anxiety for his sister’s happiness. ‘At any rate, we are agreed in thinking that this would be an unfortunate marriage for both,’ added Mountclere.