Ivers if he did not do it, yet how ugly it could be made to look! He was not above suspicion even to himself, though he clung eagerly to his plea of honesty.
"You fail to put yourself in my place——" he began.
"Absolutely, I assure you," Harry interrupted, with quiet insolence.
"And I can't put myself in yours, sir. But I can tell you what I mean to do. It is my most earnest wish to take no steps in this matter at all; but that rests with you, not with me. At least I desire to take none during Lady Tristram's illness, or during her life should she unhappily not recover."
"My mother will not recover," said Harry. "It's a matter of a few weeks at most."
Duplay nodded. "At least wait till then," he urged. "Do nothing more in regard to the matter we have spoken of while your mother lives." He spoke with genuine feeling. Harry Tristram marked it and took account of it. It was a point in the game to him.
"In turn I'll tell you what I mean to do," he said. "I mean to proceed exactly as if you had never come to Merrion Lodge, had never got your proofs from God knows where, and had never given me the pleasure of this very peculiar interview. My mother would ask no consideration from you, and I ask none for her any more than for myself. To be plain for the last time, sir, you're making a fool of yourself at the best, and at the worst a blackguard into the bargain." He paused and broke into a laugh. "Well, then, where are the proofs? Show them me. Or send them down to Blent. Or I'll come up to Merrion. We'll have a look at them—for your sake, not for mine."
"I may have spoken inexactly, Mr Tristram. I know the facts; I could get, but have not yet got, the proof of them."
"Then don't waste your money, Major Duplay." He waited an instant before he gave a deeper thrust. "Or Iver's—because I don't think your purse is long enough to furnish the resources of war. You'd get the money from him? I'm beginning to wonder more and more at the views people contrive to take of their own actions."