“Well, then, than you have told me, if you like that way of putting it better. You’re a clever gal, and have more ‘savez’ than I have in a matter like this.” The speaker’s eyes withdraw into his head, and he feels more cheerful and hopeful as he goes on speaking.
He ends by placing the whole affair in his niece’s hands for her to fight out for him.
Lileth has her fish in the shallows now, but she knows she must not startle him till her landing net is safely under and around the prize. So putting a little softer intonation into her voice, and rising from her seat, she goes to her uncle’s side.
“Uncle, I am only a poor orphan,” she begins, looking almost through Mr. Giles’s downcast eyelids. Mr. Giles can feel the power of his niece’s glance and fairly trembles, for he is always most afraid of her when she speaks thus softly.
“You have given my brother and myself a home,” goes on the young lady. “We owe you everything. I can help you and I will.”
Mr. Giles breathes more freely, but he would hardly have done so if he had known that Miss Mundella only wanted to make him easier for a moment in order to insure his feeling shy of having the whole trouble back on his own shoulders again.
“But, uncle, I have my good name to think of. I must risk that and a good deal more besides in forwarding these interests of yours. I owe it to Mr. Puttis as well as to myself to ask you if you will make me some token of regard, of appreciation, if I clear this trouble out of your way.”
“Anything you like,” Mr. Giles murmurs sleepily, almost as if the words were somebody else’s and he was simply repeating them.
“I have thought out a plan of releasing you entirely from your indebtedness, but both myself and my future husband will have to risk everything in doing it. Will you promise to give me a quarter share in the run if I succeed?”
Mr. Wilson Giles’s tenderest point is touched at this request, and the pain wakes up his courage for a moment or two.