“What!” cried Cécile, beautiful in her generous wrath and wonder, “_les Anglais!_ who believe in nothing but lofe, who blame so much all our arrangements between parents, our ideas upon marriage! You who say there is nothing but a _great passion_ which should bring two people together! Look at the book of M. Taine of the Academy, he who is such an admirable writer, who has so much observed England. That is what he says, and I believe it, I! Lofe, that is the true bond, not a similarity of circumstances, the _dot_ and the position, and how it will advance one’s career. But you--you--an Englishman, so English! you,” she cried, with a ring of disappointment in her voice,--“you, _mon D’John, mon fiancé à moi!_ that you should try to separate them because my Helen, my poor friend, is---- “Come, Cécile,” cried Sir John, “is---- that’s just it. It’s not that she is poor. To be poor is bad enough, I don’t say that I approve of it; but it is the bad connection, that is what I dislike. A bankrupt, a--a--swin---- Well, I won’t call the dead man names. That is what I object to. I don’t say a word against the girl; but, after all, Charley is my cousin, and a young fellow with all his life before him, and, hang it all! it is my duty to take care of him.” “And Helen is my friend!” said Cécile. She was shaken in her idea of her lover’s perfection, and she was shaken in her confidence in the English nation, and the pre-eminence of “lofe” in all their affairs--which she had hitherto devoutly believed in, and of which Charley Ashton’s conduct had given her delightful assurance. As for Thérèse, she was fully of Cécile’s opinion, but yet could not help feeling that if M. Charles had behaved like a reasonable creature, and fulfilled the expectations formed of him before his arrival, it would have been better for himself. For herself, Thérèse was glad things had happened otherwise; she was relieved that her mamma had given up all intention of marrying her for that year. But so far as M. Charles was concerned, for him it would have been a great deal better. With this reservation, which on the whole quickened her zeal by mingling it with a grain of pity, Thérèse threw herself generously and warmly into Helen’s cause.