Lady Rose's Daughter

by Mrs. Humphry Ward

And indeed the effect was by no means easy to determine. The Duke was first incredulous, then bewildered by the very mixed facts which she poured out upon him. He tried to cross-examine her en route, but he gained little by that; she only shook him a little, insisting the more vehemently on telling the story her own way. At last their two impatiences had nearly come to a dead-lock. But the Duke managed to free himself physically, and so regained a little freedom of mind.

"Well, upon my word," he said, as he resumed his march up and down--"upon my word!" Then, as he stood still before her, "You say she is Marriott Dalrymple's daughter?"

"And Lord Lackington's granddaughter." said the Duchess, panting a little from her exertions. "And, oh, what a blind bat you were not to see it at once--from the likeness!"

"As if one had any right to infer such a thing from a likeness!" said the Duke, angrily. "Really, Evelyn, your talk is most--most unbecoming. It seems to me that Mademoiselle Le Breton has already done you harm. All that you have told me, supposing it to be true--oh, of course, I know you believe it to be true--only makes me"--he stiffened his back--"the more determined to break off the connection between her and you. A woman of such antecedents is not a fit companion for my wife, independently of the fact that she seems to be, in herself, an intriguing and dangerous character."

"How could she help her antecedents?" cried the Duchess.

"I didn't say she could help them. But if they are what you say, she ought--well, she ought to be all the more careful to live in a modest and retired way, instead of, as I understand, making herself the rival of Lady Henry. I never heard anything so preposterous--so--so indecent! She shows no proper sense, and, as for you, I deeply regret you should have been brought into any contact with such a disgraceful story."

"Freddie!" The Duchess went into a helpless, half-hysterical fit of laughter.

But the Duke merely expanded, as it seemed, still further--to his utmost height and bulk. "Oh, dear," thought the Duchess, in despair, "now he is going to be like his mother!" Her strictly Evangelical mother-in-law, with whom the Duke had made his bachelor home for many years, had been the scourge of her early married life; and though for Freddie's sake she had shed a few tears over her death, eighteen months before this date, the tears--as indeed the Duke had thought at the time--had been only too quickly dried.

There could be no question about it, the Duke was painfully like his mother as he replied:

"I fear that your education, Evelyn, has led you to take such things far more lightly than you ought. I am old-fashioned. Illegitimacy with me does carry a stigma, and the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children. At any rate, we who occupy a prominent social place have no right to do anything which may lead others to think lightly of God's law. I am sorry to speak plainly, Evelyn. I dare say you don't like these sentiments, but you know, at least, that I am quite honest in expressing them."