These words, so impatiently listened to, were destined to come back to Bettina afterward, though at the time she resented the very suggestion of what they predicted.
Her instinct about young Spotswood had been exactly true. He had become fascinated with her during their first interview, and had followed up the acquaintance with ardor, making her very soon a proposal of marriage.
Lord Hurdly, his cousin, was unmarried, it appeared, and was an inveterate enemy to matrimony. Horace Spotswood was his nearest of kin and legal heir. But Lord Hurdly was not over sixty two or three, and was likely to live a long time. Finding it, perhaps, not very agreeable to be constantly reminded that another man would some day stand in his shoes, his lordship had procured for Horace a diplomatic position at St. Petersburg, where, although the society was delightful, the pay was small. As his heir, however, Lord Hurdly made him a very liberal allowance, and with this it was easy for Horace to indulge his taste for travel. In this way he had come to America, intending to see it extensively; but he met Bettina, and from that moment gave up every other thought but the dominant one of winning her for his wife.
Even when he had asked and been accepted he could not leave her side, but concluded to await there Lord Hurdly's answer to his letter announcing his engagement. He was not without certain misgivings on this point, but he had written so convincingly, as he thought, of Bettina's beauty, breeding, and fitness for the position of Lady Hurdly that was to be, that he would not and could not believe that his cousin would disapprove. Besides, he was too blissfully happy to grieve over problematical troubles, and so he quite gave himself up to the joys of his present position and ardent dreams of the future.
It happened, however, that Lord Hurdly's letter, when it came, was a cold, curt, and most decided refusal to consent to the marriage. He objected chiefly on the score of Bettina's being an American, though he did not hesitate to say also that he considered his heir a fool to think of marrying a woman without fortune, when he might so easily do better. In conclusion, he said that if this infatuated nonsense, as he called it, went on, he would withdraw his allowance from the very day of the marriage. He ended by hoping that Horace would come to his senses, and let him know that the thing was at an end.