“Well, Mary,” he said, his hand still upon her shoulder, “let me speak frankly and candidly. This morning I discussed the matter fully with your mother, and we both came to the conclusion that the count is a very eligible man. Neither of us desire you to marry if you entertain no love for him, but both in England and in Italy we have noticed for a year past that you have not been averse to his attentions, and—well, I may as well tell you quite plainly, my dear—we have been much gratified to think that the attraction has been mutual. Yet,” he added, “it lies with you entirely to accept or to reject him.”
“It would please you, father, if I became the Comtesse Dubard, would it not?” she asked, tears that were beyond her control springing to her eyes.
“It would please both of us,” he said in a low, earnest voice. “But you yourself must decide. That he will make you a good husband, I have no doubt. Yet, as I have already said, as your father I would be the very last to endeavour to force you to marry a man you do not love.”
She did not reply. He stood gazing upon her face, and his own thoughts were sad ones. Soon, very soon, the blow might fall, and then his wife and daughter would be left alone. He was, therefore, anxious to see her married before that catastrophe, which he knew was inevitable.
When the count had sat with him that evening making his request, he recollected the strange story Mary had told him regarding the secret examination of his papers. It was curious—so curious and so utterly devoid of motive that he could see no reason in it. Yet if that Frenchman had really discovered certain things concealed behind that green-painted steel door, it was to his interest that he should become his son-in-law and so preserve the secret.
Yes, he was anxious to see his daughter married to that man to whom he had taken such a personal liking, yet he affected to leave the decision entirely in her own hands.
She spoke at last in a hard, tuneless voice, as though her youth and life were slowly dying just as surely as the day was fading.
“If it is your wish, father, that I should become his wife, you may give him an affirmative answer. But—”
And she suddenly burst into a torrent of hot tears.
“Ah no! no!” her father cried, touching her pale cheek tenderly. “No. Do not give way, dear. I have no desire that you should marry this man if you yourself do not really love him. Perhaps your mother has been mistaken, but by various signs and looks that both of us noticed in Rome and in England, we believed that you entertained for him a warm affection.”