The Squire frowned. "There can be no giving way on the point of your marriage," he said.
Dick was about to reply, but Mrs. Clinton put her hand on his knee. "Let him tell us what he has in his mind, Edward," she said.
"I was going to say," said Dick, with a gulp, "that I am quite prepared to give way on the question of the property. I wanted you to receive Virginia, and to give me everything you were going to give me. I don't ask that now. Do what you have said you would do. I shan't grouse about it. I shan't let it make any difference between you and me. I promise you that. That's where I'll give way."
The Squire felt very uncomfortable. Conciliation was in the air, and he was prepared to be conciliatory. But how was he to meet this?
"What do you want me to do, then?" he asked, "short of——"
Dick took him up. "I'm going to marry Virginia Dubec," he said decisively. "That is settled, and you can't stop me. You haven't been fair either to me or to her about it. You have never given her a chance to prove to you, as she could prove, that she is as unlike the woman you take her for as any woman on earth could be. And you have gone to greater lengths in trying to stop me doing what I'm going to do than I think you were justified in going."
The Squire broke in on him. "Oh, if you're going to open up——" he began; but Mrs. Clinton said, "Edward, let Dick finish what he has to say"; and Dick went on quickly, "It's the last time I need mention all that. I'm ready to forget it, every bit of it, and you'll never hear a single word more about it, if—if——"
The words that rose to his lips were, "If you'll undertake to behave yourself from now onwards," but since he had to find other words to express his meaning, and paused for a moment, the Squire put in, "Well, if what? I'm waiting to hear."
"You can't stop my marriage," said Dick. "The only thing you can do is to recognise it now, unless you deliberately choose that this shall be the last time we are to see one another."
The Squire's frown of perplexity became a frown of displeasure. "If those are your terms——" he began; but again Mrs. Clinton interrupted him.