第51章

'What's the use of that, if you go to her immediately afterwards in manifest opposition to my wishes? You found yourself bound, as would any gentleman, to ask a father's leave, and when it was refused, you went on just though it had been granted! Don't you call that a mockery?'

'I can say now, sir, what I could not say then.We love each other.And I am sure of her as I am of myself when I assert that we shall be true to each other.You must know her well enough to be sure of that also.'

'I am sure of nothing but of this;--that I will not give her my consent to become your wife.'

'What is your objection, Mr Wharton?'

'I explained it before as far as I found myself called upon to explain it.'

'Are we both to be sacrificed for some reason that we neither of us understand?'

'How dare you take upon yourself to say that she doesn't understand! Because I refuse to be more explicit to you a stranger, do you suppose that I am equally silent to my own child?'

'In regard to money and social rank, I am able to place your daughter as my wife in a position as good as she now holds as Miss Wharton.'

'I care nothing about money.Mr Lopez, and our ideas of social rank are perhaps different.I have nothing further to say to you, and I do not think that you can have anything further to say to me that can be of any avail.' Then, having finished his speech, he got up from his chair and stood upright, thereby demanding of his visitor that he should depart.

'I think it no more than honest, Mr Wharton, to declare this one thing.I regard myself as irrevocably engaged to your daughter, and she, although she has refused to bind herself to me by that special word, is, I am certain, as firmly fixed in her choice as I am in mine.My happiness, as a matter of course, can be nothing to you.'

'Not much,' said the lawyer, with angry impatience.

Lopez smiled, but he put down the word in his memory and determined he would treasure it there.'Not much, at any rate as yet,' he said.'But her happiness must be much to you.'

'It is everything.But in thinking of her happiness I must look beyond what might be the satisfaction of the present day.You must excuse me, Mr Lopez, if I say that I would rather not discuss the matter with you any further.' Then he rang the bell and passed quickly into an inner room.When the clerk came Lopez of course marched out of the chamber and went his way.

Mr Wharton had been very firm, and yet he was shaken.It was by degrees becoming a fixed idea in his mind that the man's material prosperity was assured.He was afraid even to allude to that subject when talking to the man himself, lest he should be overwhelmed by evidence on that subject.Then the man's manner, though it was distasteful to Wharton himself, would, he well knew, recommend him to others.He was good-looking, he lived with people who were highly regarded, he could speak up for himself, and he was a favoured guest at Carlton House Terrace.

So great had been the fame of the Duchess and her hospitality during the last two months, that the fact of the man's success in this respect had come home even to Mr Wharton.He feared that the world would be against him, and he already began to dread the joint opposition of the world and his own child.The world of this day did not, he thought, care whether its daughter's husbands had or had not any fathers or mothers.The world as it was now didn't care whether its sons-in-law were Christian or Jewish;--whether they had the fair skin and bold eyes and uncertain words of an English gentleman, or the swarthy colour and false grimace and glib tongue of some inferior Latin race.

But he cared for those things;--and it was dreadful to him to think that his daughter should not care for them.'I suppose Ihad better die and leave them to look after themselves,' he said, as he returned to his arm-chair.

Lopez himself was not altogether ill-satisfied with the interview, not having expected that Mr Wharton would have given way at once and bestowed upon him then and there the kind father-in-law's "bless you,--bless you!".Something had yet to be done before the blessing would come, or the girl,--or the money.He had to-day asserted his own material success, speaking of himself as of a moneyed man,--and his statement had been received with no contradiction,--even without the suggestion of a doubt.He did not therefore suppose that the difficulty was over; but he was clever enough to perceive that the aversion to him on another score might help to tide him over that difficulty.And if once he could call the girl his wife, he did not doubt but that he could build himself up with the barrister's money.After leaving Lincoln's Inn he went at once to Berkeley Street, and was soon closeted with Mrs Roby.'You can get her here before you go?' he said.

'She wouldn't come;--and if we arranged it without letting her know that you were to be here, she would tell her father.She hasn't a particle of female intrigue in her.'

'So much the better,' said the lover.

'That's all very well for you to say, but when a man makes such a tyrant of himself as Mr Wharton is doing, a girl is bound to look after herself.If it was me I'd go off with my young man before I'd stand such treatment.'

'You could give her a letter.'

'She'd only show it to her father.She is so perverse that Isometimes feel inclined to say that I'll have nothing further to do with her.'

'You'll give her a message at any rate?'

'Yes,--I can do that;--because I can do it in a way that won't seem to make it important.'

'But I want my message to be very important.Tell her that I've seen her father, and have offered to explain all my affairs to him,--so that he may know that there is nothing to fear on her behalf.'

'It isn't any thought of money that is troubling him.'

'But tell her what I say.He, however, would listen to nothing.

Then I assured him that no consideration on earth would induce me to surrender her, and I was sure of her as I am of myself.Tell her that;--and tell her that I think she owes to me to say one word to me before she goes into the country.'