“Refused me point blank!” cried the old man excitedly. “It was against his principles, if you please. But I'll be even with him—you see if I am not. I know one or two things about him. What is it they call him at the Three Pigeons? A 'smasher'—that's the word-a coiner of false money. Why else should he have this metal sent him, and that great smoky chimney of his going all day?”
“Why can you not leave him alone, father?” expostulated Robert. “You seem to think of nothing but his money. If he had not a penny he would still be a very kind-hearted, pleasant gentleman.”
Old McIntyre burst into a hoarse laugh.
“I like to hear you preach,” said he. “Without a penny, indeed! Do you think that you would dance attendance upon him if he were a poor man? Do you think that Laura would ever have looked twice at him? You know as well as I do that she is marrying him only for his money.”
Robert gave a cry of dismay. There was the alchemist standing in the doorway, pale and silent, looking from one to the other of them with his searching eyes.
“I must apologise,” he said coldly. “I did not mean to listen to your words. I could not help it. But I have heard them. As to you, Mr. McIntyre, I believe that you speak from your own bad heart. I will not let myself be moved by your words. In Robert I have a true friend. Laura also loves me for my own sake. You cannot shake my faith in them. But with you, Mr. McIntyre, I have nothing in common; and it is as well, perhaps, that we should both recognise the fact.”
He bowed, and was gone ere either of the McIntyres could say a word.
“You see!” said Robert at last. “You have done now what you cannot undo!”
“I will be even with him!” cried the old man furiously, shaking his fist through the window at the dark slow-pacing figure. “You just wait, Robert, and see if your old dad is a man to be played with.”