You won't deny that, eh? Going about the world, I say?
I must not deny that, for that I am afraid I shall always do--in quest of agreeable sitters. When I say agreeable, I mean susceptible of delicate flattery and prompt of payment.
Gertrude declares she is willing to share my wanderings and help to pose my models. She even thinks it will be charming; and that brings me to my third point. Gertrude likes me.
Encourage her a little and she will tell you so."
Felix's tongue obviously moved much faster than the imagination of his auditors; his eloquence, like the rocking of a boat in a deep, smooth lake, made long eddies of silence.
And he seemed to be pleading and chattering still, with his brightly eager smile, his uplifted eyebrows, his expressive mouth, after he had ceased speaking, and while, with his glance quickly turning from the father to the daughter, he sat waiting for the effect of his appeal. "It is not your want of means," said Mr. Wentworth, after a period of severe reticence.
"Now it 's delightful of you to say that! Only don't say it 's my want of character. Because I have a character--
I assure you I have; a small one, a little slip of a thing, but still something tangible."
"Ought you not to tell Felix that it is Mr. Brand, father?"
Charlotte asked, with infinite mildness.
"It is not only Mr. Brand," Mr. Wentworth solemnly declared.
And he looked at his knee for a long time. "It is difficult to explain," he said. He wished, evidently, to be very just.
"It rests on moral grounds, as Mr. Brand says.
It is the question whether it is the best thing for Gertrude."
"What is better--what is better, dear uncle?" Felix rejoined urgently, rising in his urgency and standing before Mr. Wentworth.
His uncle had been looking at his knee; but when Felix moved he transferred his gaze to the handle of the door which faced him.
"It is usually a fairly good thing for a girl to marry the man she loves!" cried Felix.