“Oh, I beg your pardon; I'm sure you did. You said he was nothing of a lawyer, and something more.”
Was there ever a more perverse and evil and silly woman! I contented myself with assuring her that she was mistaken and had very much misunderstood me—took pains to repeat what I had really said, and then cut short an interview that had been painful and humbling to me on many grounds. I left the happy pair tête-à-tête, in their princely parlor together, little fancying that there was another argument which had been prepared to overthrow my feeble virtue. But all this had been arranged by the small cunning of this really witless couple. I was left to find my way down stairs as I might; and just when I was about to leave the dwelling—vexed to the heart at the desperate stolidity of the miserable man, whom avarice and weakness were about to expose to a loss which might be averted in part, and an exposure to infamy which might wholly be avoided—I was encountered by the attenuated form and wan countenance of his suffering but still lovely daughter.
CHAPTER VIII. — LOVE FINDS NO SMOOTH WATER IN THE SEA OF LAW
“Julia!” I exclaimed, with a start which betrayed, I am sure, quite as much surprise as pleasure. My mood was singularly inflexible. My character was not easily shaken, and, once wrought upon by any leading influence, my mind preserved the tone which it acquired beneath it, long after the cause of provocation had been withdrawn. This earnestness of character—amounting to intensity—gave me an habitual sternness of look and expression, and I found it hard to acquire, of a sudden, that command of muscle which would permit me to mould the stubborn lineaments, at pleasure, to suit the moment. Not even where my heart was most deeply interested—thus aroused—could I look the feelings of the lover, which, nevertheless, were most truly the predominant ones within my bosom.
“Julia,” I exclaimed, “I did not think to see you.”
“Ah, Edward, did you wish it?” she replied in very mournful accents, gently reproachful, as she suffered me to take her hand in mine, and lead her back to the parlor in the basement story. I seated her upon the sofa, and took a place at her side.
“Why should I not wish to see you, Julia? What should lead you to fancy now that I could wish otherwise?”
“Alas!” she replied, “I know not what to think—I scarcely know what I say. I am very miserable. What is this they tell me? Can it be true, Edward, that you are acting against my father—that you are trying to bring him to shame and poverty?”