“Don John,” said she, in the most unmoved manner, “if I believed you true, I should call on my brother to put you forth of the hall. As I believe you false, I do it not.”
After that day, Don Juan directed all his conversation to Jack.
He was not very sorry to leave Enville Court, which had become no longer an amusing, but an uncomfortable place. In his eyes, it was perfectly monstrous that any man should object to his daughters being honoured by the condescending notice of an Andalusian gentleman, who would one day be a grandee of the first class; utterly preposterous! But since this unreasonable man was so absurd as to object to the distinction, conferred upon his house, it was as well that an Andalusian gentleman should be out of his sphere. So Don Juan went willingly to London. Friends of his parents made suit for him, and Elizabeth herself remembered his mother, as one who had done her several little kindnesses, such as a Lady-in-Waiting on the Queen could do for a Princess under a cloud; and Don Juan received a free pardon, and leave to return home when and as he would. He only broke one more heart while he remained in England; and that was beneath any regret on his part, being only a poor, insignificant grocer’s daughter. And then he sailed for Spain; and then he married Doña Lisarda; and then he became a Lord-in-Waiting; and then he lived a wealthy, gorgeous, prosperous life; and then all men spoke well of him, seeing how much good he had done to himself; and then he grew old,—a highly respected, highly self-satisfied man.
And then his soul was required of him. Did God say to him,—“Thou fool”?
Chapter Nine.
Too abstruse for Blanche.
“Hear the just law, the judgment of the skies!
He that hates truth shall be the dupe of lies;
And he that will be cheated to the last,
Delusions strong as Hell shall bind him fast.”
Cowper.
“I did conceive, Mistress Blanche,” said Mr Tremayne one morning, as the party rose from the breakfast-table, “that you would with a good will see the picture of Clare’s grandsire, the which hangeth in my study-chamber?”