ll
upon the wealthy, and show us numbers win; and he'll undertake to make
them moral!'

'I wish we were not going to Steynham,' said Cecilia.

'So do I. Well, no, I don't,' the colonel corrected himself, 'no; it
's an engagement. I gave my consent so far. We shall see whether Nevil
Beauchamp's a man of any sense.'

Her heart sank. This was as much as to let her know that if Nevil broke
with his uncle, the treaty of union between the two families, which
her father submitted to entertain out of consideration for Mr. Romfrey,
would be at an end.

The wind had fallen. Entering her river, Cecilia gazed back at the
smooth broad water, and the band of golden beams flung across it from
the evening sun over the forest. No little cutter was visible. She could
not write to Nevil to bid him come and concert with her in what spirit
to encounter his uncle Everard at Steynham. And guests would be at Mount
Laurels next day; Lord Lockrace, Lord Croyston, and the Lespels; she
could not drive down to Bevisham on the chance of seeing him. Nor was
it to be acknowledged even to herself that she so greatly desired to
see him and advise him. Why not? Because she was one of the artificial
creatures called women (with the accent) who dare not be spontaneous,
and cannot act independently if they would continue to be admirable in
the world's eye, and who for that object must remain fixed on shelves,
like other marketable wares, avoiding motion to avoid shattering or
tarnishing. This is their fate, only in degree less inhuman than that of
Hellenic and Trojan princesses offered up to the Gods, or pretty slaves
to the dealers. Their artificiality is at once their bane and their
source of superior pride.

Seymour Austin might have reason for seeking to emancipate them,
she thought, and blushed in thought that she could never be learning
anything but from her own immediate sensations.

Of course it was in her power to write to Beauchamp, just as it had been
in his to speak to her, but the fire was wanting in her blood and absent
from his mood, so they were kept apart.

Her father knew as little as she what was the positive cause of Mr.
Romfrey's chastisement of Dr. Shrapnel. 'Cause enough, I don't doubt,'
he said, and cited the mephitic letter.

Cecilia was not given to suspicions, or she would have had them kindled
by a certain wilfulness in his incessant reference to the letter, and
exoneration, if not approval, of Mr. Romfrey's conduct.