CHAPTER XX.
Of Moll’s ill humour and what befel thereby.
Feeling, in the absence of Dawson, that I stood in the position of a guardian to his daughter, and was responsible for her welfare, my mind grew very uneasy about the consequences of her extravagant admiration for the painter; and, knowing that Don Sanchez, despite his phlegmatic humour, loved Moll very sincerely at heart, I took him aside one day, and asked him if he had observed nothing particular in Moll's behaviour of late.
"One would be blind," says he, "not to see that she is enamoured of Dario, if that's what you mean."
I admitted that my suspicions inclined that way, and, explaining my concern on her behalf, I asked him what he would do in my place.
"In my country," says he, "matters never would have been suffered to go so far, and Mistress Judith would have been shut up a prisoner in her room these past three weeks. But I doubt if our maidens are any the safer or better for such treatment, and I am quite sure that such treatment would be worse than useless for an English girl, and especially such an one as this. For, guard her how you might, she would assuredly find means to break her prison, and then no course is open to her but to throw herself in the arms of the man she loves, trusting to mere accident whether he abuses her devotion or not. You might as well strive to
170
