No; Drayton's regard for Mary Leithe must stand on its own
basis, independent of all other considerations.
What, in the next place, was the nature of this regard? Was it merely
avuncular, or something different? Drayton assured himself that it was
the former. He was a man of the world, and had done with passions. The
idea of his falling in love made him smile in a deprecatory manner.
That the object of such love should be a girl eighteen years his junior
rendered the suggestion yet more irrational. She was lustrous with
lovable qualities, which he genially recognized and appreciated; nay,
he might love her, but the love would be a quasi-paternal one, not the
love that demands absolute possession and brooks no rivalry. His
attitude was contemplative and beneficent, not selfish and exclusive.
His greatest pleasure would be to see her married to some one worthy of
her. Meantime he might devote himself to her freely and without fear.
And yet, once again, was he not the dupe of himself and of a
convention? Was his the mood in which an uncle studies his niece, or
even a father his daughter? How often during the day was she absent
from his thoughts, or from his dreams at night? What else gave him so
much happiness as to please her, and what would he not do to give her
pleasure? Why was he dissatisfied and aimless when not in her presence?
Why so full-orbed and complete when she was near? He was eighteen years
the elder, but there was in her a fullness of nature, a balanced
development, which went far toward annulling the discrepancy.
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