But I was not so sure of this, and, remembering the kind of obedience Moll had used to yield to her father's commands, my mind misgave me.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Don Sanchez proposes a very artful way to make Mr. Godwin a party to our knavery, etc.
I returned to Hurst Court the following day in the forenoon, and there I found Mr. Godwin, with Moll clinging to his arm, in an upper room commanding a view of the northern slopes, discussing their future, and Moll told me with glee how this room was to be her husband's workroom, where he would paint pictures for the admiration of all the world, saying that he would not (nor would she have him) renounce his calling to lead the idle life of a country gentleman.
"If the world admire my pictures, the world shall pay to have them," says he, with a smile; then turning to her he adds very tenderly: "I will owe all my happiness to you, sweetheart; yet guard my independence in more material matters. No mercenary question shall ever cast suspicion on my love."
Seeing I was not wanted here, I left them to settle their prospectives, and sought Don Sanchez, whom I found reading in a room below, seated in a comfortable chair before a good fire of apple logs. To please me, he shut up his book and agreed to take a stroll in the park while dinner was a-dressing. So we clap on our hats and cloaks and set forth, talking of indifferent matters till we are come into a fair open glade (which sort of place the prudent Don did ever prefer to holes and corners for secret conference), and then he told me how Moll and Mr. Godwin had already decided they would be married in three weeks.
"Three weeks?" says I. "I would it were to be done in three days." To which desire the Don coincides with sundry grave nods, and then tells me how Moll would have herself cried in church, for all to know, and that nothing may be wanting to her husband's dignity.
"After all," says I, "three weeks is no such great matter. And now, Señor, do tell me what you think of all this."
"If you had had the ordering of your own destiny, you could not have contrived it better," answers he. "'Tis a most excellent game, and you cannot fail to win if" (here he pauses to blow his nose) "if the cards are played properly."
This somehow brought Dawson into my thoughts, and I told the Don of my visit to him, and how he did purpose to come down to see Moll; whereat the Don, stopping short, looked at me very curiously with his eyebrows raised, but saying nothing.