This sounded somewhat like a boast; and, my spirits reviving, I enquired 'how her management had succeeded?'
'You shall judge,' returned Miss Arnold. 'I will tell you all exactly and candidly.' People seldom vouch for the candour of their narratives when it is above suspicion. 'I could not be abrupt, you know,' proceeded my _candid_ narrator; 'but I contrived to lead dexterously towards the point; and, after smoothing my way a little just hinted a possibility that Lord Frederick might succeed. Signor Maestoso took not the least notice. Then I grew a little more explicit. Still without effect! He only fixed his staring black eyes upon me, as if he would have looked through me, to see what was my purpose in telling him all that. At last I was obliged to say downrightly (Heaven forgive me for the fib!) that I was afraid you might marry De Burgh at last, though I owned you had no serious regard for him. All this while Don Pompous had been walking about the room; but at this he stopped short, just opposite to me, and asked me, with a frown as dark as a thunder cloud, "what reason I had to say so?"--I--I declare, I was quite frightened.'
Miss Arnold stopped, and seemed to hesitate. 'Well! Go on!' cried I impatiently.--'You know,' continued she, 'I could not answer his question in any other way, except by giving him some little instances of your--your good understanding with De Burgh; but still I could extort no answer from the impenetrable creature, except now and then a kind of grunt.'
'At last, when I found nothing else would do, I--I was obliged to have recourse to--to an expedient, which produced an immediate effect. And now, Ellen, I am convinced that Maitland loves you to distraction!'
'Ah, Ellen! you have a thousand times more penetration than I. I would give the world for your faculty of reading the heart.'
'But, dear Juliet! how was it,--how did you discover----'
'Why, when nothing else seemed likely to avail, I--I thought I might venture to hint, just by way of a trifling instance of your intimacy with Lord Frederick, that--that you had--had borrowed a small sum from him.'
'Good heaven, Juliet! did you tell Maitland this? Oh! he will despise me for ever. Leave me,--treacherous,--you have undone me.'