You
will begin, then, by telling him--?"
"I shall begin by saying that it seems clear to me, that I have
little hope of any success in the quarter in which he has wished me
to--"
"Nay, that will not be quite fair, Signor Marchese," interrupted
Violante, speaking very quietly. "Can you honestly tell your uncle
that you have made any very strenuous efforts in that direction?"
"But I thought, Signorina," said Ludovico, hastily; I surely had
reason to suppose that I should be speaking in support of your
sentiments--quite as much as--
"Stay, Signor Marchese; excuse my interrupting you, but it is
exactly on this point that I wished to talk with you. Let us clearly
understand each other. It is, no doubt, quite true that if you and I
had been left to ourselves, if no family-considerations had
intervened to suggest other views, neither of us would have been led
by our own inclinations,--it is best to speak openly and frankly,--
neither of us, I say, would have been led by our own inclinations to
think more of the other than as an old and valued acquaintance. This
is the truth, is it not?"
"Nay, Signorina, can I say--"
"It is not fair, you would say," interrupted Violante again, "that I
should force your gallantry to make so painful an avowal. Nonsense!
Let us put aside all such trash: the question is, not--how we shall
mutually make what the circumstances require us to say to each other
agreeable to the self-love of either of us, and to silly rules of
conventional gallantry, but there is a real question of fairness
between us; and it is this: how much should each of us expect that
the other will contribute towards the difficult task of liberating
both of us from engagements we neither of us wish to undertake.
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