“I must repeat, Mr. Leigh, I cannot send out a royal commission to take the evidence of your friends.”
“Do you mean that you will not hear any evidence, Colonel Kingsward?—that I am condemned already?—that it does not matter what I have in my favour?”
Colonel Kingsward rose to dismiss his suitor. “I have already said, Mr. Leigh, that I am not your judge. I have no right to condemn you. Your account may be all true; your earnestness and air of sincerity, I allow, in a case in which I was not personally involved, would go far to making me believe it was true. But what then? The matter is this: Will I allow my daughter to marry a man of whom such a question has been raised? I say no: and there I am within my clear rights. You may be able to clear yourself, making out the lady to be a sort of demon in human shape. My friend, who saw her, said she was a very attractive woman. But really this is not the question. I am not a censor of public morals, and on the whole it is a matter of indifference to me whether you are guiltless or not. The sole thing is that I will not permit my daughter to put her foot where such a scandal has been. I have nothing to do with you but everything with her. And I think now that all has been said.”
“That is, you will not hear anything more?”
“Well—if you like to put it so—I prefer not to hear any more.”
“Not if Bee’s happiness should be involved?”
“My daughter’s happiness, I hope, does not depend upon a man whom she has known only for a month. She may think so now. But she will soon know better. That is a question into which I decline to enter with you.”
“Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love,” said Aubrey, with a coarse laugh. He turned as if to go away. “But you do not mean that this is final, Colonel Kingsward—— not final? Not for ever? Never to be revised or reconsidered—— even if I were as bad as you think me?”
“How needless is all this! I have told you your character does not concern me—and I do not say that you are bad—or think so. I am sorry for you. You have got into a rather dreadful position, Mr. Leigh, for a young man of your age.”
“And yet at my age you think I should be cut off for ever from every hope of salvation!”