“Why not? My mother was of that mind, though not for that villainous reason; my mother knew, everybody knew--everybody agreed with me in wishing her gone. I appeal to all who knew us, Colonel Kingsward! There is not a friend I have who did not compassionate me for Amy’s insensate affection. God forgive me that I should say a word against my poor little girl, but it was an infatuation--as all her friends knew.”
“Don’t you think we are now getting into the region of the extravagant?” Colonel Kingsward said. “I cannot send out a royal commission to take the evidence of your friends.”
Aubrey had to pause again to master himself. If this man, with his contemptuous accents, his cool disdain, were not Bee’s father!---- but he was so, and, therefore, must not be defied. He answered after a time in a subdued voice. “Will you allow me--to send one or two of them to tell you what they know. There is Fairfield, with whom you are acquainted already, there is Lord Langtry, there is Vavasour, who was with us constantly----”
“To none of these gentlemen, I presume, would Mrs. Leigh be likely to unfold her most intimate sentiments.”
“Two of them have wives,” said Aubrey, determined to hold fast, “whom she saw familiarly daily--country neighbours.”
“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.”