Twemlow has just presence of mind enough to say aloud: “Very like! Uncommonly like!”
“You have noticed, perhaps, whom he favours with his attentions? You notice where he is now, and how engaged?”
“Yes. But Mr. Lammle—”
She darts a look at him which he cannot comprehend, and shows him another portrait.
“Very good; is it not?”
“Charming!” says Twemlow.
“So like as to be almost a caricature?— Mr. Twemlow, it is impossible to tell you what the struggle in my mind has been, before I could bring myself to speak to you as I do now. It is only in the conviction that I may trust you never to betray me, that I can proceed. Sincerely promise me that you never will betray my confidence—that you will respect it, even though you may no longer respect me—and I shall be as satisfied as if you had sworn it.”
“Madam, on the honour of a poor gentleman—”
“Thank you. I can desire no more. Mr. Twemlow, I implore you to save that child!”
“That child?”
“Georgiana. She will be sacrificed. She will be inveigled and married to that connection of yours. It is a partnership affair, a money-speculation. She has no strength of will or character to help herself and she is on the brink of being sold into wretchedness for life.”