He didn't believe any of the others cared anything
at all about him. Why should they?
The Squire's eyes followed the three distant walkers, Elizabeth,
graceful and vigorous, between the other two. And the conviction
gripped him that all the pleasure, the _liveableness_ of life--such
as still remained possible--depended for him on that central figure.
He looked back on his existence before her arrival at Mannering, and
on what it had been since. Why, she had transformed it!
How could he cage and keep her?--the clever, gracious creature! For
the first time in his life he was desperately, tremulously humble.
He placed no dependence at all on his name or his possessions.
Elizabeth was not to be bought.
But management--power--for the things she believed in--_they_ might
tempt her. He would give them to her with both hands, if only she
would settle down beside him, take a freehold of that chair and
table in the library, for life!
He looked back gloomily to his clumsy proposal about her mother, and
to her remarks about Pamela.
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