第17章

'Her disgrace would not depend upon that, my Lord. Should your daughter so dispose herself, as to disgrace herself,--which I think to be impossible,--your countenance could not set her right. Nor can the withdrawal of your countenance condemn her before the world if she does that with herself which any other lady might do and remain a lady.'

The Duke, when he heard this, even in the midst of his wrath, which was very violent, and the in the midst of his anger, which was very acute, felt that he had to deal with a man,--with one whom he could not put off from him into the gutter, and there leave as buried in the mud. And there came, too, a feeling upon him, which he had no time to analyse, but of which he was part aware, that this terrible indiscretion on the part of his daughter and of his late wife was less wonderful than it had at first appeared to be.

But not on that account was he the less determined to make the young man feel that his parental opposition would be invincible.

'It is quite impossible, sir. I do not think that I need say anything more.' Then, while Tregear was meditating whether to make any reply; the Duke asked a question which had better have been left unasked. The asking of it diminished somewhat from that ducal, grand-ducal, quasi-archducal, almost Godlike superiority which he had assumed, and showed the curiosity of a mere man. 'Has anybody else been aware of this?' he said, still wishing to know whether he had cause for anger against Silverbridge in the matter.

'Mrs Finn is aware of it,' said Tregear.

'Mrs Finn!' exclaimed the Duke, as though he had been stung by an adder. This was the woman whom he had prayed to remain awhile with his daughter after his wife had been laid in her grave, in order that there might be someone near whom he could trust! And this very woman whom he had so trusted,--whom, in his early associations with her, he had disliked and distrusted, but had taught himself both to like and to trust because his wife had loved her,--this woman was the she-Pandarus who had managed matters between Tregear and his daughter! His wife had been too much subject to her influence. That he had always known. And now, in this last act of her life, she had allowed herself to be persuaded to give up her daughter by the baneful wiles of this most pernicious woman. Such were the workings of the Duke's mind when the young man told him that Mrs Finn was acquainted with the whole affair. As the reader is aware, nothing could have been more unjust.

'I mentioned her name,' said Tregear, 'because I thought she had been a friend of the family.'

'That will do, sir. I have been greatly pained as well as surprised by what I have heard. Of the real state of the case I can form no opinion till I see my daughter. You, of course, will hold no further intercourse with her.' He paused as though for a promise, but Tregear did not feel himself called upon to say a word in one direction or the other. 'It will be my care that you shall not do so. Good-morning, sir.'

Tregear, who during the interview had been standing, then bowed, turned upon his heel and left the room.

The Duke seated himself, and, crossing his arms upon his chest, sat for an hour looking up at the ceiling. Why was it that, for him, such a world of misery had been prepared? What wrong had he done, of what imprudence had been guilty, that, at every turn of life, something should occur so grievous as to make him think of himself the most wretched of men? No man had ever loved his wife more dearly than he had done; and yet now, in that very excess of tenderness which her death had occasioned, he was driven to accuse her of a great sin against himself, in that she had kept from him her knowledge of this affair;--for, when he came to turn the matter over in his mind, he did believe Tregear's statement as to her encouragement. Then, too, he had been proud of his daughter. He was a man so reticent and undemonstrative in his manner that he had never known how to make confidential friends of his children.

In his sons hitherto he had not taken pride. They were gallant, well-grown, handsome boys with a certain dash of cleverness,--more like their mother than their father; but they had not as yet done anything as he would have made them do it. But the girl, in the perfection of her beauty, in the quiescence of her manner, in the nature of her studies, and in the general dignity of her bearing, had seemed to be all that he had desired. And now she had engaged herself, behind his back, to the younger son of a county squire!

But his anger against Mrs Finn was hotter than the anger against anyone in his own family.