"Is this a jest, or are you serious?" he demanded, coldly. "Do I understand that you love my daughter?—that you wish to marry her?"
"I have told you so plainly. You must have known that I loved her—you cannot have been blind to that fact all this time."
"I have been worse than blind, Nevill, I fear. Have you spoken to Madge?"
"No; I never had a chance."
"Do you consider yourself a suitable husband for her?"
"Why not?" Nevill asked; he was cool and composed now. "If you are good enough to be her father, am I not worthy to be her husband?"
"Don't say that," Stephen Foster answered. "You are insolent—you forget to whom you are speaking. Whatever our relations have been and are, whatever sort of man I am at my desk or my ledgers, I am another person at home. Sneer if you like, it is true. I love my daughter—the child of my dead wife. She does not know what I do in town—you are aware of that—and God forbid that she ever does learn. I want to keep her in ignorance—to guard her young life and secure her future happiness. And you want to marry her!"
"I do," replied Nevill, trying to speak pleasantly.
"How will you explain the deception—the fact that you have been coming here under a false name?"
"I will get around that all right. It was your suggestion, you remember, not mine, that I should take the name of Royle. Look here, Foster, I know there is some reason in what you say—I respect your motives. But you misunderstand and misjudge me. I love the girl with all my heart, with a true, pure and lasting affection. I might choose a wife in higher places, but Madge has enslaved me with her sweet face and charming disposition. As for our relations—you know what poverty drove me to. Given a secure income, and I should never have stooped to dishonor. The need of money stifled the best that was in my nature. It is not too late to reform, though. I don't mean now, but when I come into my uncle's fortune, which is a sure thing. Then, I promise you, I will be as straight as you could wish your daughter's husband to be. Believe me, I am sincere. No man could offer Madge a deeper affection."