'Give me leave,' interrupted Juliet, looking every way to avoid his eyes; 'to deliver my message. Miss Joddrel--'
'When we begin,' cried Harleigh, eagerly, 'upon the unhappy Elinor, she must absorb us; let me, then, first--'
'I must be heard, Sir,' said Juliet, with more firmness, 'or I must be gone!--'
'You must be heard, then, undoubtedly!' he cried, with a smile, and offering her a chair, 'for you must not be gone!'
Juliet declined being seated, but delivered, nearly in the words that she had received it, her message.
Harleigh looked pained and distressed, yet impatient, as he listened. 'How,' he cried, 'can I argue with her? The false exaltation of her ideas, the effervescence of her restless imagination, place her above, or below, whatever argument, or reason can offer to her consideration. Her own creed is settled--not by investigation into its merits, not by reflection upon its justice, but by an impulsive preference, in the persuasion that such a creed leaves her mistress of her destiny.'
'Ah, do not resist her!' cried Juliet. 'If there is any good to be done--do it! and without delay!'
'It is not you I can resist!' he tenderly answered, 'if deliberately it is your opinion I should comply. But her peculiar character, her extraordinary principles, and the strange situation into which she has cast herself, give her, for the moment, advantages difficult, nay dangerous to combat. Unawed by religion, of which she is ignorant; unmoved by appearances, to which she is indifferent; she utters all that occurs to an imagination inflamed by passion, disordered by disappointment, and fearless because hopeless, with a courage from which she has banished every species of restraint: and with a spirit of ridicule, that so largely pervades her whole character, as to burst forth through all her sufferings, to mix derision with all her sorrows, and to preponderate even over her passions! Reason and argument appear to her but as marks for dashing eloquence or sportive mockery. Nevertheless, if, by striking at every thing, daringly, impetuously, unthinkingly, she start some sudden doubt; demand some impossible explanation; or ask some humanly unanswerable question; she will conclude herself victorious; and be more lost than ever to all that is right, from added false confidence in all that is wrong.'