So far as this, perhaps, the man was pardonable--with a mother to
cause him to err. But, for what followed, punishment was
inevitable. He had a true and strong affection for the girl, but
it was an affection as from conscious high to low; an affection,
that is, not unmixed with patronage--a bad thing--far worse than
it can seem to the heart that indulges it. He still recoiled,
therefore, from the idea of such a leveling of himself as he
counted it would be to show her anything like the love of a
lover. All pride is more or less mean, but one pride may be
grander than another, and Godfrey was not herein proud in any
grand way. Good fellow as he was, he thought much too much of
himself; and, unconsciously comparing it with Letty's, altogether
overvalued his worth. Stranger than any bedfellow misery ever
acquainted a man withal, are the heart-fellows he carries about
with him. Noble as in many ways Wardour was, and kind as, to
Letty, he thought he always was, he was not generous toward her;
he was not Prince Arthur, "the Knight of Magnificence." Something
may perhaps be allowed on the score of the early experience
because of which he had resolved--pridefully, it is true--never
again to come under the power of a woman; it was unworthy of any
man, he said, to place his peace in a hand which could
thenceforth wring his whole being with agony. But, had he now
brought himself as severely to task as he ought, he would have
discovered that he was making no objection to the little girl's
loving him, only he would not love her in the same way in return;
and where was the honor in that? Doubtless, had he thus examined
himself, he would have thought he meant to take care that the
child's love for him should not go too far--should not endanger
her peace; and that, if the thing should give her trouble, it
should be his business to comfort her in it; but descend he would
not--would not _yet_--from his pedestal, to meet the silly
thing on the level ground of humanity, and the relation of the
man and the woman! Something like this, I say, he would have
found in his heart, horrid as it reads.
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