“If you honour me, Sir, with some portion of
your esteem,” said the offended Cecilia, “these
acknowledgments, perhaps, should be mine; suppose
them, however made, for I have a letter to write, and
can therefore stay no longer.”
“Nor do I presume, madam,” cried he proudly,
“to detain you: hitherto you may frequently
have thought me mysterious, sometimes strange and
capricious, and perhaps almost always, unmeaning; to
clear myself from these imputations, by a candid confession
of the motives which have governed me, is all that
I wished. Once, also—I hope but once,—you
thought me impertinent,—there, indeed, I
less dare vindicate myself—”
“There is no occasion, Sir,” interrupted
she, walking towards the door, “for further
vindication in any thing; I am perfectly satisfied,
and if my good wishes are worth your acceptance, assure
yourself you possess them.”
“Barbarous, and insulting!” cried he,
half to himself; and then, with a quick motion hastening
to open the door for her, “Go, madam,”
he added, almost breathless with conflicting emotions,
“go, and be your happiness unalterable as your
inflexibility!”
Cecilia was turning back to answer this reproach,
but the sight of Lady Honoria, who was entering at
the other door, deterred her, and she went on’.
When she came to her own room, she walked about it
some time in a state so unsettled, between anger and
disappointment, sorrow and pride, that she scarce
knew to which emotion to give way, and felt almost
bursting with each.
“The die,” she cried, “is at last
thrown; and this affair is concluded for ever!
Delvile himself is content to relinquish me; no father
has commanded, no mother has interfered, he has required
no admonition, full well enabled to act for himself
by the powerful instigation of hereditary arrogance!
Yet my family, he says,—unexpected condescension!
my family and every other circumstance is unexceptionable;
how feeble, then, is that regard which yields to one
only objection! how potent that haughtiness which to
nothing will give way! Well, let him keep his
name! since so wondrous its properties, so all-sufficient
its preservation, what vanity, what presumption in
me, to suppose myself an equivalent for its loss!”
Thus, deeply offended, her spirits were supported
by resentment, and not only while in company, but
when alone, she found herself scarce averse to the
approaching separation, and enabled to endure it without
repining.
A RETREAT.
The next morning Cecilia arose late, not only to avoid
the raillery of Lady Honoria, but to escape seeing
the departure of Delvile; she knew that the spirit
with which she had left him, made him, at present,
think her wholly insensible, and she was at least happy
to be spared the mortification of a discovery, since
she found him thus content, without even solicitation,
to resign her.
