Damon indeed said but
little, but his looks expressed more, than the baronet, with all his
abilities, and all his friendship, was able to suggest. In spite of both,
the father continued inexorable.
The mind of Damon was impressed with the most exalted ideas upon the
subject of filial duty. Had his heart been pre-engaged, before the affair
of Miss Frampton was proposed to him, he might not perhaps have carried
his complaisance so far, as to have married the indifferent person, in
spite of all his views and all his prepossessions. But in his estimate,
the actual entering into a connection for life in opposition to the will
of a parent, was a mode of conduct very different from, and far more
exceptionable than the refusing to unite oneself with a person in whose
society one had not the smallest reason to look for happiness.
There was another inducement that had much weight with Damon, and even
with his more sanguine friend, sir William Twyford. The fortune neither of
Damon nor Delia was independent. Lord Thomas Villiers was filled with too
many prepossessions and too much pride, easily to retract an opinion he
had once adopted, or to forgive an opposition to his judgment. The narrow
education of a tradesman it was natural to suppose had rendered the mind
of Mr. Hartley still more tenacious, and unmanageable. And neither would
sir William have been willing to see his friend, nor would the lover
readily have involved his mistress in circumstances of pecuniary distress.
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