you linger? Shake
hands, and go!"

"I cannot leave you thus; I--I--sir, the truth shall out. I am rash and
mad enough not to see Miss Trevanion without forgetting that I am poor,
and--"

"Ha!" interrupted Trevanion, softly, and growing pale, "this is a
misfortune, indeed! And I, who talked of reading characters! Truly,
truly, we would-be practical men are fools--fools! And you have made
love to my daughter!"

"Sir? Mr. Trevanion!--no--never, never so base! In your house, trusted
by you,--how could you think it? I dared, it, may be, to love,--at
all events, to feel that I could not be insensible to a temptation too
strong for me. But to say it to your heiress,--to ask love in return: I
would as soon have broken open your desk! Frankly I tell you my folly:
it is a folly, not a disgrace."

Trevanion came up to me abruptly as I leaned against the bookcase, and,
grasping my hand with a cordial kindness, said, "Pardon me! You have
behaved as your father's son should I envy him such a son! Now, listen
to me: I cannot give you my daughter--"

"Believe me, sir; I never--"

"Tut, listen! I cannot give you my daughter. I say nothing of
inequality,--all gentlemen are equal; and if not, any impertinent
affectation of superiority, in such a case, would come ill from one who
owes his own fortune to his wife! But, as it is, I have a stake in the
world, won not by fortune only, but the labor of a life, the suppression
of half my nature,--the drudging, squaring, taming down all that made
the glory and joy of my youth,--to be that hard, matter-of-fact
thing which the English world expect in a statesman! This station has
gradually opened into its natural result,--power! I tell you I shall
soon have high office in the administration; I hope to render great
services to England,--for we English politicians, whatever the mob and
the Press say of us, are not selfish place-hunters. I refused office, as
high as I look for now, ten years ago. We believe in our opinions, and
we hail the power that may carry them into effect. In this cabinet I
shall have enemies. Oh, don't think we leave jealousy behind us, at the
doors of Downing Street! I shall be one of a minority. I know well what
must happen: like all men in power, I must strengthen myself by other
heads and hands than my own. My daughter shall bring to me the alliance
of that house in England which is most necessary to me. My life falls to
the ground, like a child's pyramid of cards, i