“Do you mean it, sir?”
“I do; but in return for your liberty I claim the right to use mine as I will.”
“Use it? I do not understand.”
“To comfort Gladys.”
“How?”
“You do not love her, and leave her doubly forlorn, since you have given her a glimpse of love. I must befriend her, as you will not; and when she comes to me, as she has promised, if she is happy, I shall keep her.”
“As fille adoptive.”
Canaris affirmed, not asked, this; and, in the changed tone, the suspicious glance, Helwyze saw that he had aimed well. With a smile that was a sneer, he answered coldly,—
“Hardly that: the paternal element is sadly lacking in me; and, if it were not, I fear a man of forty could not adopt a girl of eighteen without compromising her, especially one so lonely and so lovely as poor little Gladys.”
“You will marry her? Yet when I hinted it, you said, ‘Impossible!’”