CHAPTER ii A PERPLEXITY.
CHAPTER ii
And here, at the door of his Father's house, and just ascending the steps, she perceived young Delvile.
"Again!" cried he, handing her out of the chair, "surely some good genius is at work for me this morning!"
She told him she should not have called so early, now she was acquainted with the late hours of Mrs Delvile, but that she merely meant to speak with his Father, for two minutes, upon business.
He attended her up stairs; and finding she was in haste, went himself with her message to Mr Delvile: and soon returned with an answer that he would wait upon her presently.
The strange speeches he had made to her when they first met in the morning now recurring to her memory, she determined to have them explained, and in order to lead to the subject, mentioned the disagreeable situation in which he had found her, while she was standing up to avoid the sight of the condemned malefactors.
"Indeed?" cried he, in a tone of voice somewhat incredulous, "and was that the purpose for which you stood up?"
"Certainly, Sir;--what other could I have?"
"None, surely!" said he, smiling, "but the accident was singularly opportune."
"Opportune?" cried Cecilia, staring, "how opportune? this is the second time in the same morning that I am not able to understand you!"
"How should you understand what is so little intelligible?"
"I see you have some meaning which I cannot fathom, why, else, should it be so extraordinary that I should endeavour to avoid a mob? or how could it be opportune that I should happen to meet with one?"
He laughed at first without making any answer; but perceiving she looked at him with impatience, he half gaily, half reproachfully, said, "Whence is it that young ladies, even such whose principles are most strict, seem universally, in those affairs where their affections are concerned, to think hypocrisy necessary, and deceit amiable? and hold it graceful to disavow to-day, what they may perhaps mean publicly to acknowledge to-morrow?"
Cecilia, who heard these questions with unfeigned astonishment, looked at him with the utmost eagerness for an explanation.
"Do you so much wonder," he continued, "that I should have hoped in Miss Beverley to have seen some deviation from such rules? and have expected more openness and candour in a young lady who has given so noble a proof of the liberality of her mind and understanding?"
"You amaze me beyond measure!" cried she, "what rules, what candour, what liberality, do you mean?"
"Must I speak yet more plainly? and if I do, will you bear to hear me?"
"Indeed I should be extremely glad if you would give me leave to understand you."
"And may I tell you what has charmed me, as well as what I have presumed to wonder at?"
"You may tell me any thing, if you will but be less mysterious."
"Forgive then the frankness you invite, and let me acknowledge to you how greatly I honour the nobleness of your conduct. Surrounded as you are by the opulent and the splendid, unshackled by dependance, unrestrained by authority, blest by nature with all that is attractive, by situation with all that is desirable,--to slight the rich, and disregard the powerful, for the purer pleasure of raising oppressed merit, and giving to desert that wealth in which alone it seemed deficient--how can a spirit so liberal be sufficiently admired, or a choice of so much dignity be too highly extolled?"