Page:Anna Katharine Green - Leavenworth Case.djvu/310

300 I looked at her in amazement. Such a puerile reason as this had never entered my mind.

"He has an absolute mania on the subject," resumed she. "I might as well ask him to allow me to drown myself as to marry an Englishman."

A woman of truer judgment than myself would have said: "Then, if that is so, why not discard from your breast all thought of him? Why dance with him, and talk to him, and let your admiration develop into love?" But I was all romance then, and, angry at a prejudice I could neither understand nor appreciate, I said:

"But that is mere tyranny! Why should he hate the English so? And why, if he does, should you feel yourself obliged to gratify him in a whim so unreasonable?"

"Why? Shall I tell you, auntie?" she said, flushing and looking away.

"Yes," I returned; "tell me everything."

"Well, then, if you want to know the worst of me, as you already know the best, I hate to incur my uncle’s displeasure, because—because—I have always been brought up to regard myself as his heiress, and I know that if I were to marry contrary to his wishes, he would instantly change his mind, and leave me penniless."

"But," I cried, my romance a little dampened by this admission, "you tell me Mr. Clavering has enough to live upon, so you would not want; and if you love"

Her violet eyes fairly flashed in her amazement.

"You don’t understand," she said; "Mr. Clavering is not poor; but uncle is rich. I shall be a queen—" There she paused, trembling, and falling on my breast.