"Well, then, sit down," said the Squire, "and I'll tell you."
They were confronted in a way neither of them had been prepared for. Certainly Dick had not come home to ask for explanations, nor had his father meant to open up the now closed dispute. Some underling in the back regions, with his mouth full of bread and butter and tea and his mind relaxed from his duties to his own insignificant enjoyments, was responsible for what was now going to be said in his master's sanctum. A match struck and put to the smoking-room fire would have altered the course of affairs at Kencote, perhaps only for an hour or two, perhaps for Dick's lifetime. Now, at any rate, there was to be a discussion which would otherwise have been deferred, and for their own future comfort neither the Squire nor Dick was in the most tractable mood for discussion.
"You know how the property stands and what goes with it?" the Squire began.
"Yes, I know all that," said Dick. "There's about eight thousand acres, and a rent-roll in good times of perhaps a couple of thousand a year. Then there are a couple of livings to present to, a house which might be let with the shooting by a fellow who couldn't afford to live in it for, let's say, a thousand a year. So I shall be fairly comfortably off somewhere else as long as I do let, and I dare say there won't be much difficulty about that. There are plenty of rich manufacturers who would like to take a place like Kencote."
Although his mind had been on other plans, and he had no sort of intention of living anywhere but at Kencote after he should have succeeded his father, still, in the background of his thoughts there had lain great bitterness at this preposterous punishment that his father was preparing for him; and the bitterness now showed plainly enough in his speech.
It aroused in the Squire a curious conflict of emotions. The picture of a rich outsider settled in the house which had sheltered none but Clintons for unnumbered years appalled him, and, if Dick had presented it for his inspection without heat, must have turned him from his purpose then and there; for that purpose had never been examined in its ultimate bearings, and would not have been formed except with the view of bending Dick to his will. But, already ruffled, he became more so at Dick's tone, and his uneasiness at the fearful idea which had been evolved, although it was rejected for the moment, translated itself into anger.
"You've no right to talk like that," he said hotly. "If you would come to your senses you could be as well off living here as I am."
"I know I could," said Dick more quietly, "if I were blackguard enough to give up a woman for the sake of money. But there's no use at all in talking about that. I'm quite prepared for what you are going to do, and I haven't come here, as I told you, to ask you to change your mind. It's your affair; only if you haven't looked what you're going to do in the face yet, I'm interested enough to say that I think you ought to."
"You'll have enough money," snapped the Squire, not at all mollified by this speech, "to make it possible for you to live at Kencote—you'll have much more than enough money, as I told you—if you give up this marriage. You say you won't give it up. Very well, then, you can go and live somewhere else and Humphrey can take your place here."
Dick's astonished stare recalled him to his senses. He had spoken out of his anger. He had never meant to go so far as this. But having gone so far he went on to make his position good.