He had
treated her as if the taint of her mother's worldliness and
knowledge of evil was in her pure young flesh. He had recognized
her as the daughter of an adventuress, and not as his ward,
appealing to his chivalry through her very ignorance--it might be
her very childish vanity. He had brought to a question of tender
and pathetic interest only his selfish opinion of the world and the
weaknesses of mankind. The blood came to his cheeks--with all his
experienced self-control, he had not lost the youthful trick of
blushing--and he turned away from the window as if it had breathed
a reproach.
But ought he have even contented himself with destroying her
illusions--ought he not have gone farther and told her the whole
truth? Ought he not first have won her confidence--he remembered
bitterly, now, how she had intimated that she had no one to confide
in--and, after revealing her mother's history, have still pledged
himself to keep the secret from all others, and assisted her in her
plan? It would not have altered the state of affairs, except so
far as she was concerned; they could have combined together; his
ready wit would have helped him; and his sympathy would have
sustained her; but--
How and in what way could he have told her? Leaving out the
delicate and difficult periphrase by which her mother's shame would
have to be explained to an innocent school-girl--what right could
he have assumed to tell it? As the guardian who had never
counseled or protected her? As an acquaintance of hardly an hour
ago? Who would have such a right? A lover--on whose lips it would
only seem a tacit appeal to her gratitude or her fears, and whom no
sensitive girl could accept thereafter? No.
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