"She may be too good for my son!" The baronet spoke with sublime
bitterness.

"No woman is too good for Richard, and you know it."

"Pass her."

"Yes, I will speak only of him. He met her by a fatal accident. We
thought his love dead, and so did he till he saw her again. He met her,
he thought we were plotting against him, he thought he should lose her
for ever, and is the madness of an hour he did this...."

"My Emmeline pleads bravely for clandestine matches."

"Ah! do not trifle, my friend. Say: would you have had him act as young
men in his position generally do to young women beneath them?"

Sir Austin did not like the question. It probed him very severely.

"You mean," he said, "that fathers must fold their arms, and either
submit to infamous marriages, or have these creatures ruined."

"I do not mean that," exclaimed the lady, striving for what she did mean,
and how to express it. "I mean that he loved her. Is it not a madness
at his age? But what I chiefly mean is--save him from the consequences.
No, you shall not withdraw your hand. Think of his pride, his
sensitiveness, his great wild nature--wild when he is set wrong: think
how intense it is, set upon love; think, my friend, do not forget his
love for you."