Harvey was on the verge of being very angry. He could have been so. Julia's persistency was most amazing. If she had not looked so thin and changed, and if this had not been his first glimpse of her, he would have got up and walked out of the room. Somehow he could not resolve on this step, neither did he dare to agitate her by any marked show of displeasure.
"My dear, do you know that you are meddling in business matters? Women know nothing about business."
"Perhaps not. Still, you will tell me," she pleaded. "Did Mr. Dalrymple intend that?"
"He wrote a note to Mr. Selwyn just before his death, stating some such intention. It was merely a passing fancy. The truth is, he had been a good deal agitated,—altogether upset."
"What about?"
"About my marriage, if you will have it. He was in a weakened state already, and I have not the slightest doubt that the agitation affected his brain." Harvey did not add that, whatever might be thought about that particular note, and the particular sum mentioned therein, no possible doubt existed as to Mr. Dalrymple's fixed intention to provide amply for his granddaughter.
"Why should he have minded your marrying so much?"
"He had had a dream for years that I should marry Hermione. Most absurd and impossible, but that was partly my reason for staying so long abroad. I foresaw a collision, and I wished to avoid it. Mind, all this is in confidence. Hermione knows nothing of her grandfather's fancy, and she must not know. When he found that I was actually married, and that his favourite idea could never come to pass, he was—well, certainly much vexed and very much over-excited. The news had the effect upon him of a shock. If I could have foretold this, I should have broken it more cautiously. He wrote to Mr. Selwyn, under the moment's impulse, speaking of a twenty thousand pound settlement upon Hermione. Highly ridiculous, as he would have known himself in cooler moments if he had lived."
"I thought everything was entailed."
"The landed property, not the money property. He had, I suppose, as much as that at his disposal. You see you do not understand these things, Julia. It is much better not to try. The last thing the poor old gentleman would really have wished would have been to wreck the property. You may depend upon me to do what is right for Hermione."