“He would be anything but flattered could he but overhear our conversation,” continued the companion of the gay stranger. “In ordinary! Not he, faith!—It is barely six months ago since he married the——”
“Widow of some gouty general,” exclaimed the other, impatiently. “Pshaw!—no more of him.”
“He married,” responded the civilian, “no widow of a gouty general, but Inez de Liomana.”
“An antiquated virgin,” said the stranger, with a smile; “of high family, holy life, and on the wrong side of sixty.”
“Never did a man guess wider of the mark: she was one of the prettiest girls in the province, and on the right side of seventeen,” observed the civilian.
“But what the devil does it interest me,” exclaimed the stranger, “whether an old gentleman exhibits his dotage, by committing matrimony, or any other similar absurdity? I don’t want to know anything about his wife.”
“But you wish me to favour you with full particulars touching his lovely daughter.”
“His daughter!” said the stranger: “Is yonder peerless beauty indeed that old man’s child?”
“His only child. She pays the penalty of an act of dotage, for the old fool’s marriage consigns her to a convent.”
“Monstrous!” ejaculated the stranger: “What! bury beauty like her’s within a living grave! By Heaven! I’ll escalade the convent walls myself, and liberate that lovely victim; ay, though I perished by the hands of the Inquisition for the sacrilege! But why, if the old man played the fool, should she, poor girl, be immured for it?”