第12章

'I dare say;--I dare say.French and German are very useful.Ihave a prejudice of my own in favour of Greek and Latin.'

'But I rather fancy I picked up more Greek and Latin at Bonn than I should have got here, had I stuck to nothing else.'

'I dare say;--I dare say.You may be an Admirable Crichton for what I know.'

'I have not intended to make any boast, sir, but simply to vindicated those who had the care of my education.If you have no objection except that founded on my birth, which is an accident--'

'When one man is a peer and another a ploughman, that is an accident.One doesn't find fault with the ploughman, but one doesn't ask him to dinner.'

'But my accident,' said Lopez smiling, 'is one which you would hardly discover unless you were told.Had I called myself Talbot you would not know but that I was as good an Englishman as yourself.'

'A man of course may be taken in by falsehoods,' said the lawyer.

'If your have no other objection than that raised, I hope you will allow me to visit in Manchester Square.'

'There may be ten thousand other objections, Mr Lopez, but Ireally think that the one is enough.Of course I know nothing of my daughter's feelings.I should imagine that the matter is as strange to her as it is to me.But I cannot give you anything like encouragement.If I am ever to have a son-in-law, I should wish to have an English son-in-law.I do not even know what your profession is.'

'I am engaged in foreign loans.'

'Very precarious I should think.A sort of gambling, isn't it?'

'It is the business by which many of the greatest mercantile houses in the city have been made.'

'I dare say;--I dare say;--and by which they come to ruin.Ihave the greatest respect in the world for mercantile enterprise, and I have had as much to do as most men with mercantile questions.But I ain't sure that I wish to marry my daughter in the City.Of course it's all prejudice.I won't deny that on general subjects I can give as much latitude as any man; but when one's own heart is attacked--'

'Surely such a position as mine, Mr Wharton, is no attack!'

'In my sense it is.When a man proposes to assault and invade the very kernel of another man's heart, to share with him, and indeed to take from him, the very dearest of his possessions, to become part and parcel with him either for infinite good or infinite evil, then a man has a right to guard even his prejudices as precious bulwarks.' Mr Wharton as he said this was walking about the room with his hands in his trouser pockets.'Ihave always been for absolute toleration in matters of religion, --have always advocated the admission of Roman Catholics and Jews into Parliament, and even to the Bench.In ordinary life I never question a man's religion.It is nothing to do with me whether he believes in Mahomet, or has no belief at all.But when a man comes to ask for my daughter--'

'I have always belonged to the Church of England,' said Ferdinand Lopez.

'Lopez is at any rate a bad name to go to a Protestant church with, and I don't want my daughter to bear it if I am very frank with you, as in such a matter men ought to understand each other.

Personally I have liked you well enough, and have been glad to see you at my house.Everett and you have seemed to be friends, and I have had no objection to make.But marrying into a family is a very serious thing indeed.'

'No man feels that more strongly than I do, Mr Wharton.'

'There had better be an end of it.'

'Even though I should be happy enough to obtain her favour?'

'I can't think that she cares about you.I don't think it for a moment.You say that you haven't spoken to her, and I am sure she's not a girl to throw herself at a man's head.I don't approve it, and it had better fall to the ground.It must fall to the ground.'

'I wish you would give me a reason.'

'Because you are not English.'

'But I am English.My father was a foreigner.'

'It doesn't suit my ideas.I suppose I may have my own ideas about my own family, Mr Lopez? I feel perfectly certain that my child will do nothing to displease me, and this would displease me.If we were to talk for an hour, I could say nothing further.'

'I hope that I may be able to present things to you in an aspect so altered,' said Lopez as he prepared to take his leave, 'as to make you change your mind.'

'Possibly;--possibly,' said Wharton; 'but I do not think it is possible.Good morning to you, sir.If I have said anything that has seemed to be unkind, put it down to my anxiety as a father and to not to my conduct as a man.' Then the door was closed behind his visitor, and Mr Wharton was left walking up and down his room alone.He was by no means satisfied with himself.

He felt that he had been rude and at the same time not decisive.

He had not explained to the man as he would wish to have done, that it was monstrous and out of the question that a daughter of the Whartons, one of the oldest families in England, should be given to a friendless Portuguese, a probable Jew,--about whom nobody knew nothing.Then he remembered that sooner or later his girl would have at least 60,000 pounds, a fact of which no human being but himself was aware.Would it not be well that somebody should be made aware of it, so that his girl might have the chance of suitors preferable to the swarthy son of Judah? He began to be afraid, as he thought of it, that he was not managing his matters well.How would it be with him if he should find that the girl was really in love with this swarthy son of Judah?

He had never inquired about his girl's heart, though there was one to whom he hoped that his girl's heart might some day be given.He almost made up his mind to go home at once, so anxious was he.But the prospect of having to spend an entire afternoon in Manchester Square was to much for him, as he remained in his chamber till the usual hour.

Lopez, as he returned from Lincoln's Inn, westward to his club, was, on the whole, contented with the interview.He had expected opposition.He had not thought the cherry would fall easily into his mouth.But the conversation generally had not taken those turns which he thought would be most detrimental to him.