“Tut-tut, my boy!” he said. “If you had had my experience, you would know that compromise is nine parts of the law.”
“And a rope the tenth, sir, is it not? Well, you may play your nine parts for me; only I, for what remains, am going to hang Mr Dalston.”
The colour left his face. His new sprightliness was all gone in a moment. He returned to the desk, and seated himself, somewhat in his old tired attitude.
“Well, Richard,” he said. “What else?”
Emotion rose in me. I lingered on the blow I had to deal. But it must out at last.
“I made a point, sir, if you observed, of referring to him as calling himself my father.”
“I noticed. He is not your father, then—only the vile deputy of another?”
“No more my father, sir, I do believe, than Lady Skene is my mother. I was born of quite other parentage.”
He held his eyes shaded with one hand. The shaking fingers of the other affected to toy with a pen.
“Go on,” he muttered. “Why do you stop?”