He had an inbred
love of the difficult, the unconventional in life, of all that piqued
and stimulated his own superabundant consciousness of resource and
power. And he had a tenderness of feeling, a gift of chivalrous pity,
only known to the few, which was in truth always hungrily on the watch,
like some starved faculty that cannot find its outlet. The thought of
this beautiful child, in the hands of such a mother as Madame d'Estrees,
and rushing upon risks illustrated by the half-mocking attentions of
Geoffrey Cliffe, did in truth wring his heart. With a strange
imaginative clearness he foresaw her future, he beheld her the prey at
once of some bad fellow and of her own temperament. She would come to
grief; he saw the prescience of it in her already; and what a waste
would be there!
No!--he would step in--capture her before these ways and whims, now
merely bizarre or foolish, stiffened into what might in truth destroy
her. His pulse quickened as he thought of the development of this
beauty, the ripening of this intelligence. Never yet had he seen a girl
whom he much wished to marry. He was easily repelled by stupidity, still
more by mere amiability.
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