marry and have sons of his own, he has no right to load a poor boy with
benefits, and say: 'There is but one way to prove your gratitude;
remember my ancestors, and be miserable for the rest of your days!'
Darrell, forsooth, intends to leave to Lionel the transmission of the old
Darrell name; and the old Darrell name must not be tarnished by the
marriage on which Lionel has unluckily set his heart! I respect the old
name; but it is not like the House of Vipont--a British Institution. And
if some democratical cholera, which does not care a rush for old names,
carries off Lionel, what becomes of the old name then? Lionel is not
Darrell's son; Lionel need not perforce take the old name. Let the young
man live as Lionel Haughton, and the old name die with Guy Darrell!

"As to the poor girl's birth and parentage, I believe we shall never know
them. I quite agree with Darrell that it will be wisest never to
inquire. But I dismiss, as farfetched and improbable, his supposition
that she is Gabrielle Desmaret's daughter. To me it is infinitely more
likely, either that the deposition of the nurse, which poor Willy gave to
Darrell, and which Darrell showed to me, is true (only that Jasper was
conniving at the temporary suspension of his child's existence while it
suited his purpose)--or that, at the worst, this mysterious young lady is
the daughter of the artiste. In the former supposition, as I have said
over and over again, a marriage between Lionel and Sophy is precisely
that which Darrell should desire; in the latter case, of course, if
Lionel were the head of the House of Vipont, the idea of such an union
would be inadmissible. But Lionel, /entre nous/, is the son of a ruined
spendthrift by a linen-draper's daughter. And Darrell has but to give
the handsome young couple five or six thousand a year, and I know the
world well enough to know that the world will trouble itself very little
about their pedigrees. And really Lionel should be left wholly free to
choose whether he prefer a girl whom he loves with his whole heart, five