Restraining this feeling, he went on, gravely and gently:  “You once intimated that I was young, Miss Vosburgh, yet the circumstances and responsibilities of my lot have led me to think more, perhaps, than others of my age, and to look beyond the present hour.  I regard the property left me by my father as a trust, and I have learned to-day that I can greatly increase and probably double it.  It is my intention, after taking my mother and sisters abroad, to return to New York and to enter cautiously into business under the guidance of my legal adviser, who is a man of great sagacity.  Now, as you know, I have said from the first that it is natural for you to feel deeply in regard to the events of the day; but I look beyond all this turmoil, distraction, and passion, which will be as temporary as it is violent.  I am thinking for you as truly as for myself.  Pardon me for saying it; I am sure I am in a better condition of mind to think for you than you are to judge for yourself.  I can give you the highest social position, and make your future a certainty.  From causes I can well understand the passion of the hour has been swaying you—­”

She rose, and by an emphatic gesture stopped him, and there was a fire in the blue eyes that had been so cold before.  She appeared to have grown inches as she stood before him and said, in tones of concentrated scorn:  “You are indeed young, yet you speak the calculating words of one so old as to have lost every impulse of youth.  Do you know where my father is at this moment?”

“No,” he faltered.

“He is taking part, at the risk of his life, in this temporary hurly-burly, as you caricature it.  It is he who is swaying me, and the memory of the brave men whom you have met here and to whom you fancied yourself superior.  Did not that honored father exist, or those brave friends, I feel within my soul that I have womanhood enough to recognize and feel my country’s need in this supreme hour of her peril.  You thoughtful beyond your years?—­you think for me?  What did you think of me the first evening you spent here?  What were your thoughts as you came again and again?  To what am I indebted for this honor, but the fact that you could only beguile a summer’s ennui by a passing flirtation which would leave me you little cared where, after you had joined your aristocratic friends abroad?  Now your plans have changed, and, after much deliberation, you have come to lift me to the highest position!  Never dream that I can descend to your position!”

He was fairly trembling with anger and mortification, and she was about to leave the apartment.

“Stay!” he said, passing his hand across his brow as if to brush away confusion of mind; “I have not given you reason for such contempt, and it is most unreasonable.”