Greystock, of course, took his cousin's part. He was there to do so; and he himself really did not know whether Lizzie was or was not entitled to the diamonds. The lie which she had first fabricated for the benefit of Mr. Benjamin when she had the jewels valued, and which she had since told with different degrees of precision to various people,—to Lady Linlithgow, to Mr. Camperdown, to Lucy, and to Lord Fawn,—she now repeated with increased precision to her cousin. Sir Florian, in putting the trinket into her hands, had explained to her that it was very valuable, and that she was to regard it as her own peculiar property. "If it was an heirloom he couldn't do it," Frank had said, with all the confidence of a practising barrister.
"He made it over as an heirloom to me," said Lizzie, with plaintive tenderness.
"That's nonsense, dear Lizzie." Then she smiled sweetly on him, and patted the back of his hand with hers. She was very gentle with him, and bore his assumed superiority with pretty meekness. "He could not make it over as an heirloom to you. If it was his to give, he could give it you."
"It was his,—certainly."
"That is just what I cannot tell as yet, and what must be found out. If the diamonds formed part of an heirloom,—and there is evidence that it is so,—you must give them up. Sir Florian could only give away what was his own to give."
"But Lord Fawn had no right to dictate."
"Certainly not," said Frank; and then he made a promise, which he knew to be rash, that he would stand by his pretty cousin in this affair. "I don't see why you should assume that Lady Eustace is keeping property that doesn't belong to her," he said to Lord Fawn.
"I go by what Camperdown tells me," said Lord Fawn.
"Mr. Camperdown is a very excellent attorney, and a most respectable man," said Greystock. "I have nothing on earth to say against Mr. Camperdown. But Mr. Camperdown isn't the law and the prophets, nor yet can we allow him to be judge and jury in such a case as this."
"Surely, Mr. Greystock, you wouldn't wish it to go before a jury."