The Duke's Children. Anthony Trollope

and be silent. I will excuse it because you were young, and were thrown imprudently in his way. There has, I believe, been someone at work in the matter with whom I ought to be more angry than with you. Say that you will obey me, and there is nothing within a father's power that I will not do for you, to make your life happy." It was thus that he strove not to be stern. His heart, indeed, was tender enough, but there was nothing tender in the tone of his voice or in the glance of his eye. Though he was very positive in what he said, yet he was shy and shamefaced even with his own daughter. He, too, had blushed when he told her that she must conquer her love.

      That she should be told that she had disgraced herself was terrible to her. That her father should speak of her marriage with this man as an event that was impossible made her very unhappy. That he should talk of pardoning her, as for some great fault, was in itself a misery. But she had not on that account the least idea of giving up her lover. Young as she was, she had her own peculiar theory on that matter, her own code of conduct and honour, from which she did not mean to be driven. Of course she had not expected that her father would yield at the first word. He, no doubt, would wish that she should make a more exalted marriage. She had known that she would have to encounter opposition, though she had not expected to be told that she had disgraced herself. As she sat there she resolved that under no pretence would she give up her lover;—but she was so far abashed that she could not find words to express herself. He, too, had been silent for a few moments before he again asked her for her promise.

      "Will you tell me, Mary, that you will not see him again?"

      "I don't think that I can say that, papa."

      "Why not?"

      "Oh papa, how can I, when of all the people in the world I love him the best?"

      It is not without a pang that any one can be told that she who is of all the dearest has some other one who to her is the dearest. Such pain fathers and mothers have to bear; and though, I think, the arrow is never so blunted but that it leaves something of a wound behind, there is in most cases, if not a perfect salve, still an ample consolation. The mother knows that it is good that her child should love some man better than all the world beside, and that she should be taken away to become a wife and a mother. And the father, when that delight of his eyes ceases to assure him that he is her nearest and dearest, though he abandon the treasure of that nearestness and dearestness with a soft melancholy, still knows that it is as it should be. Of course that other "him" is the person she loves the best in the world. Were it not so how evil a thing it would be that she should marry him! Were it not so with reference to some "him", how void would her life be! But now, to the poor Duke the wound had no salve, no consolation. When he was told that this young Tregear was the owner of his girl's sweet love, was the treasure of her heart, he shrank as though arrows with sharp points were pricking him all over. "I will not hear of such love," he said.

      "What am I to say, papa?"

      "Say that you will obey me."

      Then she sat silent. "Do you not know that he is not fit to be your husband?"

      "No, papa."

      "Then you cannot have thought much either of your position or of mine."

      "He is a gentleman, papa."

      "So is my private secretary. There is not a clerk in one of our public offices who does not consider himself to be a gentleman. The curate of the parish is a gentleman, and the medical man who comes here from Bradstock. The word is too vague to carry with it any meaning that ought to be serviceable to you in thinking of such a matter."

      "I do not know any other way of dividing people," said she, showing thereby that she had altogether made up her mind as to what ought to be serviceable to her.

      "You are not called upon to divide people. That division requires so much experience that you are bound in this matter to rely upon those to whom your obedience is due. I cannot but think you must have known that you were not entitled to give your love to any man without being assured that the man would be approved of by—by—by me." He was going to say, "your parents," but was stopped by the remembrance of his wife's imprudence.

      She saw it all, and was too noble to plead her mother's

      authority. But she was not too dutiful to cast a reproach upon him, when he was so stern to her. "You have been so little with me, papa."

      "That is true," he said, after a pause. "That is true. It has been a fault, and I will mend it. It is a reason for forgiveness, and I will forgive you. But you must tell me that there shall be an end to this."

      "No, papa."

      "What do you mean?"

      "That as I love Mr. Tregear, and as I have told him so, and as I have promised him, I will be true to him. I cannot let there be an end to it."

      "You do not suppose that you will be allowed to see him again?"

      "I hope so."

      "Most assuredly not. Do you write to him?"

      "No, papa."

      "Never?"

      "Never since we have been back in England."

      "You must promise me that you will not write."

      She paused a moment before she answered him, and now she was looking him full in the face. "I shall not write to him. I do not think I shall write to him; but I will not promise."

      "Not promise me—your father!"

      "No, papa. It might be that—that I should do it."

      "You would not wish me so to guard you that you should have no power of sending a letter but by permission?"

      "I should not like that."

      "But it will have to be so."

      "If I do write I will tell you."

      "And show me what you write?"

      "No, papa; not that; but I will tell you what I have written."

      Then it occurred to him that this bargaining was altogether derogatory to his parental authority, and by no means likely to impress upon her mind the conviction that Tregear must be completely banished from her thoughts. He began already to find how difficult it would be for him to have the charge of such a daughter—how impossible that he should conduct such a charge with sufficient firmness, and yet with sufficient tenderness! At present he had done no good. He had only been made more wretched than ever by her obstinacy. Surely he must pass her over to the charge of some lady—but of some lady who would be as determined as was he himself that she should not throw herself away by marrying Mr. Tregear.

      "There shall be no writing," he said, "no visiting, no communication of any kind. As you refuse to obey me now, you had better go to your room."

CHAPTER IX

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"In Medias Res"

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      Perhaps the method of rushing at once "in medias res" is, of all the ways of beginning a story, or a separate branch of a story, the least objectionable. The reader is made to think that the gold lies so near the surface that he will be required to take very little trouble in digging for it. And the writer is enabled—at any rate for a time, and till his neck has become, as it were, warm to the collar—to throw off from him the difficulties and dangers, the tedium and prolixity, of description. This rushing "in medias res" has doubtless the charm of ease. "Certainly, when I threw her from the garret window to the stony pavement below, I did not anticipate that she would fall so far without injury to life or limb." When a story has been begun after this fashion, without any prelude, without description of the garret or of the pavement, or of the lady thrown,