“I could, it is true, have kept you longer in the dark. I might have maintained this deception a week or two longer.” “Oh, that were useless; the mistake was in not--No matter--it was never a question wherein I could have a voice. Has n't the night grown colder?” “No; it's just what it was when we came out,” said he, gruffly. “Now that you know all this affair,” resumed he, after a lapse of some minutes, “there 's another matter I 'd like to talk over; it touches yourself, too, and we may as well have it now as later. What about Beecher; he has been paying you attentions, hasn't he?” “None beyond what I may reasonably expect from one in his position towards me.” “Yes, but he has, though. I sent over Lienstahl to report to me, and he says that Beecher's manner implied attachment, and yours showed no repugnance to him. Is this true?” “It may be, for aught I know,” said she, indifferently. “Mr. Beecher probably knows what he meant. I certainly can answer for myself, and will say that whatever my manner might imply, my heart--if that be the name for it--gave no concurrence to what the Count attributed to me.” “Do you dislike him?” “Dislike? No; certainly not; he is too gentle, too obliging, too conciliating in manner, too well bred to create dislike. He is not very brilliant--” “He 'll be a peer,” broke in Davis. “I suspect that all his views of life are deeply tinged with prejudice?” “He'll be a peer,” continued Davis. “He has been utterly neglected in education.” “He don't want it.” “I mean that to suit the station he fills--” “He has got the station; he's sure of it; he can't be stripped of it. In one word, girl, he has, by right and birth, rank and fortune, such as ten generations of men like myself, laboring hard every hour of their lives, could never win. He 'll be a peer of England, and I know of no title means so much.” “But of all his failings,” said Lizzy, who seemed to take little heed of her father's interruptions, while steadily following out her own thoughts,--“of all his failings, he has none greater or more pernicious than the belief that it is a mark of intelligence to outwit one's neighbor; that cunning is a high quality, and craft means genius.” “These might be poor qualities to gain a living with,” said Davis, “but I tell you, once for all, he does n't need to be brilliant, or witty, or any other nonsense of that kind. He 'll have the right to go where all the cleverness of the world couldn't place him, to live in a set where, if he could Write plays like Shakspeare, build bridges like Brunel, or train a horse like John Scott, it would n't avail him a brass farthing; and if you only knew, child, what these people think of each other, and what the world thinks of _them_, you 'd see it's the best stake ever was run for.”