"Poor Morton. He was a friend of mine. We used to call him the Paragon because he never made mistakes. I had heard that you and Lady Augusta were a good deal with him in Washington."
"We were, indeed. You do not know my good news as yet, I suppose. Your Paragon, as you call him, has left me five thousand pounds." Of course it would be necessary that he should know it some day if this new plan of hers were to be carried out;—and if the plan should fail, his knowing it could do no harm.
"How very nice for you. Poor Morton!"
"It is well that somebody should behave well, when others treat one so badly, Mr. Green. Yes; he has left me five thousand pounds." Then she showed him the lawyer's letter. "Perhaps as I am so separated at present from all my own people by this affair with Lord Rufford, you would not mind seeing the man for me." Of course he promised to see the lawyer and to do everything that was necessary. "The truth is, Mr. Green, Mr. Morton was very warmly attached to me. I was a foolish girl, and could not return it. I thought of it long and was then obliged to tell him that I could not entertain just that sort of feeling for him. You cannot think now how bitter is my regret;—that I should have allowed myself to trust a man so false and treacherous as Lord Rufford, and that I should have perhaps added a pang to the deathbed of one so good as Mr. Morton." And so she told her little story;—not caring very much whether it were believed or not, but finding it to be absolutely essential that some story should be told.
During the next day or two Mounser Green thought a great deal about it. That the story was not exactly true, he knew very well. But it is not to be expected that a girl before her marriage should be exactly true about her old loves. That she had been engaged to Lord Rufford and had been cruelly jilted by him he did believe. That she had at one time been engaged to the Paragon he was almost sure. The fact that the Paragon had left her money was a strong argument that she had not behaved badly to him. But there was much that was quite certain. The five thousand pounds were quite certain; and the money, though it could not be called a large fortune for a young lady, would pay his debts and send him out a free man to Patagonia. And the family honours were certainly true. She was the undoubted niece of the Duke of Mayfair, and such a connection might in his career be of service to him. Lord Mistletoe was a prig, but would probably be a member of the Government. Mounser Green liked Dukes, and loved a Duchess in his heart of hearts. If he could only be assured that this niece would not be repudiated he thought that the speculation might answer in spite of any ambiguity in the lady's antecedents.
"Have you heard about Arabella's good fortune?" young Glossop asked the next morning at the office.
"You forget, my boy," said Mounser Green, "that the young lady of whom you speak is a friend of mine."
"Oh lord! So I did. I beg your pardon, old fellow." There was no one else in the room at the moment, and Glossop in asking the question had in truth forgotten what he had heard of this new intimacy.
"Don't you learn to be ill-natured, Glossop. And remember that there is no form so bad as that of calling young ladies by their Christian names. I do know that poor Morton has left Miss Trefoil a sum of money which is at any rate evidence that he thought well of her to the last."
"Of course it is. I didn't mean to offend you. I wouldn't do it for worlds,—as you are going away." That afternoon, when Green's back was turned, Glossop gave it as his opinion that something particular would turn up between Mounser and Miss Trefoil, an opinion which brought down much ridicule upon him from both Hoffmann and Archibald Currie. But before that week was over,—in the early days of April,—they were forced to retract their opinion and to do honour to young Glossop's sagacity. Mounser Green was engaged to Miss Trefoil, and for a day or two the Foreign Office could talk of nothing else.