Ought she not, therefore, with the intensest scorn of
what-do-you-take-me-for-sir indignation to have repelled the insult
offered to her?
Poor Paolina had no conception that any insult at all was offered to
her or intended. Ludovico was minded to offer to her that which it
was in his power to offer, for her to accept if it suited her, or to
decline if it suited her not. The species of tie that he offered her
was all he could offer her. It was one very frequently offered and
very frequently accepted in similar cases. Had the possibility that
she might one day accept such been suggested to her, it would have
produced no horror in her mind. She had no conviction during all
these eight months that she never could or would accept such a
position from any man. Why, then, did not matters proceed
harmoniously and smoothly between them? Why had not Paolina become
Ludovico's mistress before this time? What was the meaning of the
averted face, and of that broken off "but--" which she had found it
so difficult to follow with a completed sentence?
The meaning was, that Paolina's own heart, during those hours of
reverie filled with the meditation of her love,--during those
pourings forth of her confessions of love to her heavenly confidant
in her bedside prayers;--during her nightly review of the love-
passages of the day,--her own heart, as it became clearer to her,
had revealed to her, that she could not accede to any such proposal
as that which, she was well persuaded, the Marchese could alone
offer to her;--had revealed it to her, not in obedience to any moral
principle; not by any what-do-you-take-me-for process of indignant
virtue; but by an instinctive feeling irresistible and not to be
gainsayed, that the love she had to bestow must possess its object
wholly and entirely, or not at all.
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