man she loves because you
don't like him? Is that the way girls live now-a-days? She won't run
away with him, because she's not one of that sort; but unless you're
harder-hearted than I take you to be, she'll make your life a burden
to you. And as for betraying you, that's nonsense. You've no right to
say it. I'm not going to quarrel with you whatever you may say, but
you've no right to say it."

Mr. Wharton, as he went away to Lincoln's Inn, bewailed himself
because he knew that he was not hard-hearted. What his sister-in-law
had said to him in that respect was true enough. If he could only rid
himself of a certain internal ague which made him feel that his life
was, indeed, a burden to him while his daughter was unhappy, he need
only remain passive and simply not give the permission without which
his daughter would not ever engage herself to this man. But the ague
troubled every hour of his present life. That sister-in-law of his
was a silly, vulgar, worldly, and most untrustworthy woman;--but she
had understood what she was saying.

And there had been something in that argument about the Duchess of
Omnium's parties, and Mr. Happerton, which had its effect. If the man
did live with the great and wealthy, it must be because they thought
well of him and of his position. The fact of his being a "nasty
foreigner," and probably of Jewish descent, remained. To him,
Wharton, the man must always be distasteful. But he could hardly
maintain his opposition to one of whom the choice spirits of the
world thought well. And he tried to be fair on the subject. It might
be that it was a prejudice. Others probably did not find a man to be
odious because he was of foreign extraction and known by a foreign
name. Others would not suspect a man of being of Jewish blood because
he was swarthy, or even object to him if he were a Jew by descent.
But it was wonderful to him that his girl should like such a
man,--should like such a man well enough to choose him as the one
companion of her life. She had been brought up to prefer English
men, and English thinking, and English ways,--and English ways, too,
somewhat of a past time. He thought as did Brabantio, that it could
not be that without magic his daughter who had shunned--

"The wealthy curled darlings of our nation,
Would ever have, to incur a general mock,
Run from her guardage to the sooty bosom
Of such a thing as"--

this distasteful Portuguese.

That evening