She and I | Page 7

if you will only give me some hope of gaining your consent, when I have achieved what you may consider sufficient for the purpose, I will work for her and win her. O Mrs Clyde!"--I pleaded,--"let me only have the assurance that you will allow her to wait for me. I will work most nobly that I may deserve her!"
"All this is mere rhapsody, Mr Lorton,"--she said in her icy accents, throwing a shower of metaphorical cold water on my earnest enthusiasm.--"Do you seriously think for a moment that I would give my consent to my daughter's engagement to you in your present position?"
"I hoped so, Mrs Clyde," I replied, timidly.
I did not know what else to say.
"Then you hoped wrongly," she said. "You are really very young, Mr Lorton! I do not mean merely in years, but in knowledge of the world! You positively wish me to sacrifice all my daughter's prospects, and let her be bound to a wearisome engagement, on the mere chance of your being able at some distant period to marry her! Do I understand you aright? I certainly gave you credit for possessing more good sense, Mr Lorton, or I should never have admitted you to my house."
"O, Mrs Clyde," I said, "be considerate! Be merciful! Remember, that you were young once."
"I am considerate," she answered--"still, I must think of my daughter's welfare, before regarding the foolish wishes of a comparative stranger!"
Throughout the interview, she invariably alluded to Min as "her daughter," never mentioning her name.
It seemed as if she wished to avoid even the idea of our intimacy, and to make me understand how great a gulf lay between us.
"But I love her so, Mrs Clyde!" I pleaded again, in one last effort. "I love her dearly, and she loves me, I know. Do not, oh! do not part us so cruelly!"
"This is very foolish, Mr Lorton,"--she replied, coldly;--"and there is not much use, I think, in our prolonging the conversation; for, none of your arguments would convince me to give my consent to any such hair- brained scheme. Even if your offer had otherwise my approval, which it has not, I could not bear the idea of a long engagement for my daughter. You yourself ought to be more generous than to wish to tie a girl down to an arrangement which would waste her best years, blight her life; and, probably, end in her being a sour, disappointed woman--as I have known hundreds of such cases to end!"
"I do not wish to bind her," I said. "I only want your provisional consent, Mrs Clyde. I will diligently try to deserve it; and you will never regret it, you may be assured."
"I cannot give it, Mr Lorton,"--she replied in a decisive way.--"And if you meet my daughter again, you must promise me that it shall be only as a friend."
"And, what if I refuse to do so?"--I said defiantly.
"I should leave the neighbourhood," she said promptly.--"And, if you were so very ungentlemanlike, as still to persecute her with your attentions, I should soon take measures to put a stop to them."
What could I say or do? She was armed at all points, and I was powerless!
"Will you let me see your daughter; and, learn from her own lips if she be of the same opinion as yourself?" I asked.
I was longing to see Min. I wanted to know whether she had been convinced by her mother's worldly policy, or no.
"It is impossible for me to grant your request," said Mrs Clyde. "My daughter is not at home. She went down to the country this morning on a visit to her aunt; and the date of her return depends mainly on your decision now."
This was the finishing blow.
I succumbed completely before this master-stroke of policy, which my wary antagonist had not disclosed until the last.
"Oh! Mrs Clyde," I said; "how very hard you are to me!"
"Pardon me, Mr Lorton," she replied, as suave as ever.--"But, you will think differently by-and-by, and thank me for acting as I have done! Your foolish fancy for my daughter will soon wear off; and you will live to laugh at your present folly!"
"Never!" I said, determinedly, with a full heart.
"But you will promise not to speak to my daughter otherwise than as a friend, when you see her again?" she urged:--not at all eagerly, but, quite coolly, as she had spoken all along.
I would have preferred her having been angry, to that calm, irritating impassiveness she displayed. She appeared to be a patent condenser of all emotion.
"I suppose I must consent to your terms!"--I said, despairingly.--"Although, Mrs Clyde, I give you fair warning that, when I am in a position to renew my suit under better auspices, I will not hold myself bound by this promise."
"Very well,