made use of my name and my rank in life--even now, my cheeks burn
while I think of it--to dazzle her girl's pride, to make her listen to
me for the sake of my station, if she would not for the sake of my
suit, however honourably urged. Never before had I committed the
meanness of trusting to my social advantages, what I feared to trust
to myself. It is true that love soars higher than the other passions;
but it can stoop lower as well.

Her answers to all that I urged were confused, commonplace, and
chilling enough. I had surprised her--frightened her--it was
impossible she could listen to such addresses from a total
stranger--it was very wrong of me to speak, and of her to stop and
hear me--I should remember what became me as a gentleman, and should
not make such advances to her again--I knew nothing of her--it was
impossible I could really care about her in so short a time--she must
beg that I would allow her to proceed unhindered.

Thus she spoke; sometimes standing still, sometimes moving hurriedly a
few steps forward. She might have expressed herself severely, even
angrily; but nothing she could have said would have counteracted the
fascination that her presence exercised over me. I saw her face,
lovelier than ever in its confusion, in its rapid changes of
expression; I saw her eloquent eyes once or twice raised to mine, then
instantly withdrawn again--and so long as I could look at her, I cared
not what I listened to. She was only speaking what she had been
educated to speak; it was not in her words that I sought the clue to
her thoughts and sensations; but in the tone of her voice, in the
language of her eyes, in the whole expression of her face. All these
contained indications which reassured me. I tried everything that
respect, that the persuasion of love could urge, to win her consent to