“I hardly know, Mr. Wharton, whether that is intended to exclude me.”
“Well—to tell you the truth I know nothing about you. I don’t know who your father was—whether he was an Englishman, whether he was a Christian, whether he was a Protestant—not even whether he was a gentleman. These are questions which I should not dream of asking under any other circumstances;—would be matters with which I should have no possible concern, if you were simply an acquaintance. But when you talk to a man about his daughter—!”
“I acknowledge freely your right of inquiry.”
“And I know nothing of your means;—nothing whatever. I understand that you live as a man of fortune, but I presume that you earn your bread. I know nothing of the way in which you earn it, nothing of the certainty or amount of your means.”
“Those things are of course matters for inquiry; but may I presume that you have no objection which satisfactory answers to such questions may not remove?”
“I shall never willingly give my daughter to anyone who is not the son of an English gentleman. It may be a prejudice, but that is my feeling.”
“My father was certainly not an English gentleman. He was a Portuguese.” In admitting this, and in thus subjecting himself at once to one clearly-stated ground of objection—the objection being one which, though admitted, carried with itself neither fault nor disgrace—Lopez felt that he had got a certain advantage. He could not get over the fact that he was the son of a Portuguese parent, but by admitting that openly he thought he might avoid present discussion on matters which might, perhaps, be more disagreeable, but to which he need not allude if the accident of his birth were to be taken by the father as settling the question. “My mother was an English lady,” he added, “but my father certainly was not an Englishman. I never had the common happiness of knowing either of them. I was an orphan before I understood what it was to have a parent.”
This was said with a pathos which for the moment stopped the expression of any further harsh criticism from the lawyer. Mr. Wharton could not instantly repeat his objection to a parentage which was matter for such melancholy reflections; but he felt at the same time that as he had luckily landed himself on a positive and undeniable ground of objection to a match which was distasteful to him, it would be unwise for him to go to other matters in which he might be less successful. By doing so, he would seem to abandon the ground which he had already made good. He thought it probable that the man might have an adequate income, and yet he did not wish to welcome him as a son-in-law. He thought it possible that the Portuguese father might be a Portuguese nobleman, and therefore one whom he would be driven to admit to have been in some sort a gentleman;—but yet this man who was now in his presence and whom he continued to scan with the closest observation, was not what he called a gentleman. The foreign blood was proved, and that would suffice. As he looked at Lopez he thought that he detected Jewish signs, but he was afraid to make any allusion to religion, lest Lopez should declare that his ancestors had been noted as Christians since St. James first preached in the Peninsula.
“I was educated altogether in England,” continued Lopez, “till I was sent to a German university in the idea that the languages of the continent are not generally well learned in this country. I can never be sufficiently thankful to my guardian for doing so.”
“I dare say;—I dare say. French and German are very useful. I have a prejudice of my own in favour of Greek and Latin.”
“But I rather fancy I picked up more Greek and Latin at Bohn than I should have got here, had I stuck to nothing else.”
“I dare say;—I dare say. You may be an Admirable Crichton for what I know.”
“I have not intended to make any boast, sir, but simply to vindicate those who had the care of my education. If you have no objection except that founded on my birth, which is an accident—”
“When one man is a peer and another a ploughman, that is an accident. One doesn’t find fault with the ploughman, but one doesn’t ask him to dinner.”
“But my accident,” said Lopez smiling, “is one which you would hardly discover unless you were told. Had I called myself Talbot you would not know but that I was as good an Englishman as yourself.”
“A man of course may be taken in by falsehoods,” said the lawyer.
“If you have no other objection than that raised, I hope you will allow me to visit in Manchester Square.”
“There may be ten thousand other objections, Mr. Lopez, but I really think that the one is enough. Of course I know nothing of my daughter’s feelings. I should imagine that the matter is as strange to her as it is to me. But I cannot give you anything like encouragement. If I am ever to have a son-in-law I should wish to have an English son-in-law. I do not even know what your profession is.”
“I am engaged in foreign loans.”
“Very precarious I should think. A sort of gambling; isn’t it?”
“It is the business by which many of the greatest mercantile houses in the city have been made.”
“I dare say;—I dare say;—and by which they come to ruin. I have the greatest respect in the world for mercantile enterprise, and have had as much to do as most men with mercantile questions. But I ain’t sure that I wish to marry my daughter in the City. Of course it’s all prejudice. I won’t deny that on general subjects I can give as
