A DISCUSSION.
The day past away, and Cecilia had yet written no
answer; the evening came, and her resolution was still
unfixed. Delvile, at length, was again announced;
and though she dreaded trusting herself to his entreaties,
the necessity of hastening some decision deterred her
from refusing to see him.
Mrs Charlton was with her when he entered the room;
he attempted at first some general conversation, though
the anxiety of his mind was strongly pictured upon
his face. Cecilia endeavoured also to talk upon
common topics, though her evident embarrassment spoke
the absence of her thoughts.
Delvile at length, unable any longer to bear suspence,
turned to Mrs Charlton, and said, “You are probably
acquainted, madam, with the purport of the letter
I had the honour of sending to Miss Beverley this
morning?”
“Yes, Sir,” answered the old lady, “and
you need desire little more than that her opinion
of it may be as favourable as mine.”
Delvile bowed and thanked her; and looking at Cecilia,
to whom he ventured not to speak, he perceived in
her countenance a mixture of dejection and confusion,
that told him whatever might be her opinion, it had
by no means encreased her happiness.
“But why, Sir,” said Mrs Charlton, “should
you be thus sure of the disapprobation of your friends?
had you not better hear what they have to say?”
“I know, madam, what they have to say,”
returned he; “for their language and their principles
have been invariable from my birth: to apply
to them, therefore, for a concession which I am certain
they will not grant, were only a cruel device to lay
all my misery to their account.”
“And if they are so perverse, they deserve from
you nothing better,” said Mrs Charlton; “speak
to them, however; you will then have done your duty;
and if they are obstinately unjust, you will have acquired
a right to act for yourself.”
“To mock their authority,” answered Delvile,
“would be more offensive than to oppose it:
to solicit their approbation, and then act in defiance
of it, might justly provoke their indignation.—No;
if at last I am reduced to appeal to them, by their
decision I must abide.”
To this Mrs Charlton could make no answer, and in
a few minutes she left the room.
“And is such, also,” said Delvile, “the
opinion of Miss Beverley? has she doomed me to be
wretched, and does she wish that doom to be signed
by my nearest friends!”
“If your friends, Sir,” said Cecilia,
“are so undoubtedly inflexible, it were madness,
upon any plan, to risk their displeasure.”
“To entreaty,” he answered, “they
will be inflexible, but not to forgiveness. My
father, though haughty, dearly, even passionately
loves me; my mother, though high-spirited, is just,
noble, and generous. She is, indeed, the most
exalted of women, and her power over my mind I am
unaccustomed to resist. Miss Beverley alone seems
born to be her daughter—”
