As the peer thus spoke, Vaudemont, leaning against the door, contemplated him with a strange mixture of interest and disgust. “And John Lilburne is thought a great man, and William Gawtrey was a great rogue. You don’t conceal your heart?—no, I understand. Wealth and power have no need of hypocrisy: you are the man of vice—Gawtrey, the man of crime. You never sin against the law—he was a felon by his trade. And the felon saved from vice the child, and from want the grandchild (Your flesh and blood) whom you disown: which will Heaven consider the worse man? No, poor Fanny, I see I am wrong. If he would own you, I would not give you up to the ice of such a soul:—better the blind man than the dead heart!”
“Well, Lord Lilburne,” said De Vaudemont aloud, shaking off his reverie, “I must own that your philosophy seems to me the wisest for yourself. For a poor man it might be different—the poor need affection.”
“Ay, the poor, certainly,” said Lord Lilburne, with an air of patronising candour.
“And I will own farther,” continued De Vaudemont, “that I have willingly lost my money in return for the instruction I have received in hearing you converse.”
“You are kind: come and take your revenge next Thursday. Adieu.”
As Lord Lilburne undressed, and his valet attended him, he said to that worthy functionary,—
“So you have not been able to make out the name of the stranger—the new lodger you tell me of?”
“No, my lord. They only say he is a very fine-looking man.”
“You have not seen him?”
“No, my lord. What do you wish me now to do?”