Page:Paul Clifford Vol 2.djvu/259

Rh Mr. Clifford, perhaps I offend, I hurt you by speaking thus frankly; but your good name rests with yourself, and your friends cannot but feel angry that you should trifle with it."

"Madam!" said Clifford, and Lucy's eyes now growing accustomed to the darkness, perceived a bitter smile upon his lips, "My name, good or ill, is an object of little care to me. I have read of philosophers who pride themselves in placing no value in the opinions of the world. Rank me among that sect—but I am, I own I am, anxious that you alone, of all the world, should not despise me;—and now that I feel you do—that you must—every thing worth living or hoping for is past!"

"Despise you!" said Lucy, and her eyes filled with tears—"Indeed, you wrong me and yourself. But listen to me, Mr. Clifford, I have seen, it is true, but little of the world, yet I have seen enough to make me wish I could have lived in retirement for ever; the rarest quality among either sex, though it is the simplest, seems to me,