It was a new light to the plain merchant. "How should you say if a
Prince came and asked for you?"

"Still that he asked a favour at my hands."

"Oh!" went Mr. Pole, in the voice of a man whose reason is outraged. The
placidity of Cornelia's reply was not without its effect on him,
nevertheless. He had always thought his girls extraordinary girls, and
born to be distinguished. "Perhaps she has a lord in view," he
concluded: it being his constant delusion to suppose that high towering
female sense has always a practical aim at a material thing. He was no
judge of the sex in its youth. "Just speak to her," he said to Wilfrid.

Wilfrid had heard from Emilia that there was a tragic background to this
outward placidity; tears on the pillow at night and long vigils. Emilia
had surprised her weeping, and though she obtained no confidences, the
soft mood was so strong in the stately lady, that she consented to weep
on while Emilia clasped her. Petitioning on her behalf to Wilfrid for
aid, Emilia had told him the scene; and he, with a man's stupidity,
alluded to it, not thinking what his knowledge of it revealed to a woman.

"Why do you vacillate, and keep us all in the dark as to what you mean?"
he began.

"I am not prepared," said Cornelia; the voice of humility issuing from a
monument.

"One of your oracular phrases! Are you prepared to be straightforward in
your dealings?"