"I beg your pardon, Lady
Lufton; I shall have done directly, and then I will hear you. And so
my brother came to me, not urging this suit, expressing no wish for
such a marriage, but allowing me to judge for myself, and proposing
that I should see your son again on the following morning. Had I done
so, I could not but have accepted him. Think of it, Lady Lufton. How
could I have done other than accept him, seeing that in my heart I
had accepted his love already?"
"Well?" said Lady Lufton, not wishing now to put in any speech of her
own.
"I did not see him--I refused to do so--because I was a coward. I
could not endure to come into this house as your son's wife, and be
coldly looked on by your son's mother. Much as I loved him, much as I
do love him, dearly as I prize the generous offer which he came down
here to repeat to me, I could not live with him to be made the object
of your scorn. I sent him word, therefore, that I would have him when
you would ask me, and not before." And, then, having thus pleaded her
cause--and pleaded, as she believed, the cause of her lover also--she
ceased from speaking, and prepared herself to listen to the story
of King Cophetua. But Lady Lufton felt considerable difficulty in
commencing her speech.
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