These words, which seemed to cut short farther discussion, were calmly spoken; so that though they appeared to discourage farther question, they could not interrupt that which still trembled on Julian’s tongue. He made a step or two towards the door; then suddenly returned. “Your daughter?” he said—“Major Bridgenorth—I should ask—I do ask forgiveness for mentioning her name—but may I not inquire after her?—May I not express my wishes for her future happiness?”
“Your interest in her is but too flattering,” said Bridgenorth; “but you have already chosen your part; and you must be, in future, strangers to each other. I may have wished it otherwise, but the hour of grace is passed, during which your compliance with my advice might—I will speak it plainly—have led to your union. For her happiness—if such a word belongs to mortal pilgrimage—I shall care for it sufficiently. She leaves this place to-day, under the guardianship of a sure friend.”
“Not of——?” exclaimed Peveril, and stopped short; for he felt he had no right to pronounce the name which came to his lips.
“Why do you pause?” said Bridgenorth; “a sudden thought is often a wise, almost always an honest one. With whom did you suppose I meant to entrust my child, that the idea called forth so anxious an expression?”
“Again I should ask your forgiveness,” said Julian, “for meddling where I have little right to interfere. But I saw a face here that is known to me—the person calls himself Ganlesse—Is it with him that you mean to entrust your daughter?”
“Even to the person who call himself Ganlesse,” said Bridgenorth, without expressing either anger or surprise.
“And do you know to whom you commit a charge so precious to all who know her, and so dear to yourself?” said Julian.
“Do you know, who ask me the question?” answered Bridgenorth.
“I own I do not,” answered Julian; “but I have seen him in a character so different from that he now wears, that I feel it my duty to warn you, how you entrust the charge of your child to one who can alternately play the profligate or the hypocrite, as it suits his own interest or humour.”
Bridgenorth smiled contemptuously. “I might be angry,” he said, “with the officious zeal which supposes that its green conceptions can instruct my grey hairs; but, good Julian, I do but only ask from you the liberal construction, that I, who have had much converse with mankind, know with whom I trust what is dearest to me. He of whom thou speakest hath one visage to his friends, though he may have others to the world, living amongst those before whom honest features should be concealed under a grotesque vizard; even as in the sinful sports of the day, called maskings and mummeries, where the wise, if he show himself at all, must be contented to play the apish and fantastic fool.”