25. CHAPTER XXV.
O, quha is this has done this deed,
This ill deed done to me?
To send me out this time o' the zeir,
To sail upon the sea.
— Percy Reliques.
A slave whose gall coins slanders like a mint.
— Troilus and Cressida.
“Your proposal flatters me, Mr. Morton; and, in many
points of view, the connection you offer would be a desirable
one, — a very desirable one. But I must say to you plainly,
that if my wishes alone were consulted, my daughter would
bestow her hand elsewhere. Perhaps I need not tell you
that Horace Vinal, who was my ward, and my late wife's
relation, and who has been my partner in business for a year
or more, is a young man whom I have looked upon as my
son, and whom it was my very earnest hope to have seen
such in reality. You who have had an opportunity of knowing
him can hardly be surprised that, after so long an intimacy,
I should prefer this connection to any other. I have
seen him in all the relations of life, and the more I have seen
the more I have learned to esteem him.”
“You speak with a good deal of emphasis of his character.
May I ask if any part of your objection to me rests on that
score.”
“In a matter like this, I am bound to be frank with you.
In many quarters, I hear you very highly spoken of, — so
highly, in fact, that I am disposed to take with every qualification
what I have heard to your disadvantage.”
“Pray, what is that?”
“I was a soldier once, and don't incline to inquire too
closely into the way young men may see fit to amuse themselves.
But on a point where my daughter's happiness might
be involved —”
“Upon my word, sir, I don't understand you.”
“Well, Mr. Morton, I hear — that is, I have learned —
that, like other young men of leisure, you have had your
bonnes fortunes, and winged other game than partridges and
woodcock.”
Morton looked at him in surprise. The truth was, that,
some time before, the discreet and far-sighted Vinal had contrived
to inoculate his patron with this calumny, which he
thought the species most likely to take readily. And such
had been his tact, that Leslie, though well imbued with the
idea, would have been puzzled to say whence he had received
it. A man of shallow-brained uprightness like his, if he
yields too easy a belief to falsehood, has the advantage of
yielding also an easy belief to truth. A few words from
Morton sufficed to carry conviction to the frank-hearted
auditor, who, feeling that, at least as regarded its worst
features, his charge must be groundless, hastened to make
the amende.
“Your word is enough, Mr. Morton, and I owe you an
apology for imagining that you could be false or heartless in
any connection whatever. I think, however, that you can see
how, without disparagement to you, I should still regret that
Horace Vinal, who is personally so near to me, so devoted to
my interests, and so strongly attached to my daughter, should
be disappointed. I advised him, yesterday, to go to Europe,
to recruit his health. I am told that you had yourself some
plan of the kind.”
“A very indefinite one, sir; in fact, amounting to none
at all.”
“Go this autumn; be absent a year, — that is not too
long for seeing Europe, — and if at the end of that time you
and my daughter should remain as earnest in this matter as
you are now, why, I am not the man to persist in opposing
her inclination.”
The sentence was hard; but there was no appeal. Leslie
had told Vinal the day before that he would despatch Morton
on his travels, intimating a hope that a long separation might
bring about a change in his daughter's feelings. Morton saw
nothing for it but acquiescence; to which, indeed, Miss
Leslie urged him, confiding in the strength of his attachment,
and happy to reconcile adverse duties and inclinations
at any price.
Meanwhile, he had not the smallest suspicion of the subtle
trick which his rival had played him. “This is a charitable
world!” he thought; “one must keep the beaten track,
look demure, and talk virtue, or, in one shape or another, it
will be the worse for him.”
