'You mean that she has no knowledge whatever of your, your preference for her.'
'I cannot say that.It is hardly possible that I should have learned to love her as I do without some consciousness on her part that it is so.'
'What I mean is, without any beating about the bush,--have you been making love to her?'
'Who is to say what making love consists, Mr Wharton?'
'D it, sir, a gentleman knows.A gentleman knows whether he has been playing on a girl's feelings, and a gentleman, when he is asked as I have asked you, will at any rate tell the truth.Idon't want any definitions.Have you been making love to her?'
'I think, Mr Wharton, that I have behaved like a gentleman; and that you will acknowledge at least so much when you come to know exactly what I have done and what I have not done.I have endeavoured to commend myself to your daughter, but I have never spoken a word of love to her.'
'Does Everett know of all this?'
'Yes.'
'And has he encouraged it?'
'He knows of it because he is my intimate friend.Whoever the lady might have been, I should have told him.He is attached to me, and would not I think, on his own account, object to call me his brother.I spoke to him yesterday on the matter very plainly, and he told me that I ought certainly to see you first.
I quite agreed with him, and therefore I am here.There has certainly been nothing in his conduct to make you angry, and I do not think that there has been anything in mine.'
There was a dignity of demeanour and a quiet assured courage which had its effect upon the old lawyer.He felt that he could not storm and talk in ambiguous language of what a 'gentleman'
would or would not do.He might disapprove of this man altogether as a son-in-law,--and at the present moment he thought he did,--but still the man was entitled to a civil answer.How were lovers to approach the ladies of their love in any manner more respectful than this? 'Mr Lopez,' he said, 'you must forgive me if I say that you are comparatively a stranger to us.'
'That is an accident which would easily be cured if your will in that direction were as good as mine.'
'But, perhaps, it isn't.One has to be explicit in these matters.A daughter's happiness is a very serious consideration;--and some people, among whom I confess that I am one, consider that like people should marry like.I should wish to see my daughter marry,--not only in my own sphere, neither higher nor lower,--but with someone of my own class.'
'I hardly know, Mr Wharton, whether that is intended to exclude me.'
'Well,--to tell you the truth I know nothing about you.I don't know who your father was,--whether he was an Englishman, whether he was a Christian, whether he was a Protestant,--not even whether he was a gentleman.These are questions which I should not dream of asking under any other circumstances;--would be matters with which I should have no possible concern, if you were simply an acquaintance.But when you talk to a man about his daughter--?'
'I acknowledge freely your right of inquiry.'
'And I know nothing of your means;--nothing whatever.Iunderstand that you live as a man of fortune, but I presume that you earn your bread.I know nothing of the way in which you earn it, nothing of the certainty or amount of your means.'
'Those things are of course matters for inquiry; but may Ipresume that you have no objection which satisfactory answers to such questions may not remove?'
'I shall never willingly give my daughter to anyone who is not the son of an English gentleman.It may be a prejudice, but that is my feeling.'
'My father was certainly not an English gentleman.He was a Portuguese.' In admitting this, and subjecting himself at once to one clearly-stated ground of objection,--the objection being one which, though admitted, carried with it neither fault nor disgrace,--Lopez felt that he had got a certain advantage.He could not get over the fact that he was the son of a Portuguese parent, but by admitting that openly he thought he might avoid present discussion on matters which might, perhaps, be more disagreeable, but to which he need not allude if the accident of birth were to be taken by the father as settling the question.
'My mother was an English lady,' he added, 'but my father certainly was not an Englishman.I never had the common happiness of knowing either of them.I was an orphan before Iunderstood what it was to have a parent.'
This was said with a pathos, which for the moment stopped the expression of any further harsh criticism from the lawyer.Mr Wharton could not instantly repeat his objection to a parentage which was matter for such melancholy reflections; but he felt at the same time that as he had luckily landed himself on a positive and undeniable ground of objection to a match which was distasteful to him, it would be unwise for him to go to other matters in which he might be less successful.By doing so, he would seem to abandon the ground which he had already made good.
He thought it probable that the man might have an adequate income, and yet he did not wish to welcome him as a son-in-law.
He thought it possible that the Portuguese father might be a Portuguese nobleman, and therefore one whom he might be driven to admit to have been some sort of gentleman;--but yet this man who was now in his presence and whom he continued to scan with the closest observation, was not what he called a gentleman.The foreign blood was proved, and that would suffice.As he looked at Lopez, he thought that he detected Jewish signs, but he was afraid to make any allusions to religion, lest Lopez should declare his ancestors had been noted as Christians since St James first preached in the Peninsula.
'I was educated altogether in England,' continued Lopez, 'till Iwas sent to a German university in the idea that the languages of the Continent are not generally well learned in this country;--Ican never be sufficiently thankful to my guardian for doing so.'
