’Of course I cannot. I am not such a child
as to suppose that there are many Mr Glascocks to
come and run after me. And if there were ever
so many, papa, it would be no good. As you say,
I have chosen for myself, and I must put up with it.
When I see the carriages going about in the streets,
and remember how often shall have to go home in an
omnibus, I do think about it a good deal.’
‘I’m afraid you will think when it is
too late.’
’It isn’t that I don’t like carriages,
papa. I do like them; and pretty dresses, and
brooches, and men and women who have nothing to do,
and balls, and the opera; but I love this man, and
that is more to me than all the rest. I cannot
help myself if it were ever so. Papa, you mustn’t
be angry with me. Pray, pray, pray do not say
that horrid word again.’
This was the end of the interview. Sir Marmaduke
found that he had nothing further to say. Nora,
when she reached her last prayer to her father, referring
to that curse with which he had threatened her, was
herself in tears, and was leaning on him with her head
against his shoulder. Of course he did not say
a word which could be understood as sanctioning her
engagement with Stanbury. He was as strongly determined
as ever that it was his duty to save her from the perils
of such a marriage as that. But, nevertheless,
he was so far overcome by her as to be softened in
his manners towards her. He kissed her as he left
her, and told her to go to her mother. Then he
went out and thought of it all, and felt as though
Paradise had been opened to his child and she had
refused to enter the gate.
SHEWING WHAT HUGH STANBURY THOUGHT ABOUT THE DUTY OF MAN
In the conference which took place between Sir Marmaduke
and his wife after the interview between him and Nora,
it was his idea that nothing further should be done
at all. ’I don’t suppose the man will
come here if he be told not,’ said Sir Marmaduke,
’and if he does, Nora of course will not see
him.’ He then suggested that Nora would
of course go back with them to the Mandarins, and
that when once there she would not be able to see
Stanbury any more. ’There must be no correspondence
or anything of that sort, and so the thing will die
away.’ But Lady Rowley declared that this
would not quite suffice. Mr Stanbury had made
his offer in due form, and must be held to be entitled
to an answer. Sir Marmaduke, therefore, wrote
the following letter to the ‘penny-a-liner,’
mitigating the asperity of his language in compliance
with his wife’s counsels.
’Manchester Street, April 20th, 186-.
My Dear Sir,
Lady Rowley has told me of your proposal to my daughter
Nora; and she has told me also what she learned from
you as to your circumstances in life. I need
hardly point out to you that no father would be justified
in giving his daughter to a gentleman upon so small
an income, and upon an income so very insecure.
