"Your reply, brief as it is, conveys two errors, Miss Graham. He is not a Marquis; little as the title often implies in Italy, he has no right to it. He asked Lord William Bentinck to let him call himself Marquis, and so to address him, as a means of frequenting circles where important information was accessible. Lord William said, 'Call yourself what you please--Grand Duke, if you like it--I am no dispenser of such designations.' The gentleman was modest;--he stopped at Marquis. As to his diplomatic functions, we have a short and expressive word for them;--he was and is, a Spy!"
Not heeding the scornful reception of the daughter, I turned towards Mrs. Graham, and, with all the power I possessed, urged her, at least, to defer this fatal step;--that she was about to bestow her child upon a man of notoriously degraded character, and one whose assumption of rank and position was disregarded and despised in the very humblest circles. The mother wept bitterly; at one moment, turning to dissuade her daughter from her rashness, at the next, appealing to me against what she called my unjust prejudices against the Marquis. Miss Graham scornfully refused to vouchsafe me even a word.
I confess more than once my temper prompted me to abandon the enterprise, and suffer wilfulness to reap its own bitter harvest; but then, my better feelings prevailed, and old memories of my poor friend Graham again enlisted me in defence of his sister.
Of no avail was it that I followed these worthier promptings. It seemed as if the man had thrown a spell over these two unhappy women, one, being perfectly enthralled, the other, nearly so, by the artful fascinations of his manner; and yet he was neither young, handsome, rich, nor of high lineage. On the contrary, the man was at least fifty-three or four, a perfect monster of ugliness, with an ex-pression of sardonic sycophancy actually demoniac.
If I were not relating "a fact"--one of which I can answer, that many now living can entirely corroborate--I would hesitate about dwelling on a case where improbabilities are so strong, and where I have nothing to offer like an explanation of them. Wilkes has long since convinced the world how little good looks are concerned in winning a woman's heart, and how, indeed, a very considerable share of ugliness can be counterbalanced by captivations of manner and personal agreeability. But, judging from the portraits--even Hogarth's fearful sketch--Wilkes was handsome compared to Salvatori; and in point of reputation, low as it was, the Libeller and the Satirist was still better than the Spy.