"Margaret, take my advice—sign nothing."
Margaret smiled, and then she sighed wearily. In this matter she would have preferred taking her own way, but she gave in.
"Impulsive child!" she said, a slight tone of irritation in her voice; then, turning to the lawyer, "Perhaps, Mr. Robinson, even for form's sake it will be wiser for me to try and make out what all this means. But for the moment I feel slightly bewildered. You must allow me to think over it. You are staying at the hotel, I suppose? If you will give us the pleasure of your company to lunch we can further discuss this in the afternoon."
The lawyer rose. Margaret's invitation was a dismissal. He was obliged to submit to the delay, although it was a matter of great importance to him that the business which had brought him to Middlethorpe should be settled at once; but Adèle's sharp eyes, rendered far-seeing by love and anxiety, were watching him narrowly, and he would show no sign of anxiety. "Take your own time, my dear Mrs. Grey," he replied benignantly. "You must have seen and understood all along that my special object in my business dealings with ladies is to persuade them to do everything intelligently—comprehending, that is to say, the why and the wherefore of the step they are advised to take. I find some too ready. They throw themselves entirely on their lawyer's superior knowledge, increasing, of course, our responsibility, and this I deprecate. Others"—he looked across at Margaret with his charming smile—"are inclined to be too timorous. They take fright at the sight of parchment, and when asked to sign imagine they are being defrauded of some right. Your position, Mrs. Grey, is the wisest—indeed I may say the most satisfactory to one's self, for when, by repeated explanations, I have made all this perfectly clear to your mind, my position will be the more tenable. Then if in the future subject of discussion should arise—which, understand me, I do not apprehend—I shall be able to call upon you and our young friend here as witnesses to the truth of what I assert—namely, that you did everything with your eyes open."
The lawyer bowed himself out of the room. This time he had struck the right chord. To Margaret, in her state of bewilderment, the "repeated explanations" sounded like a kind of threat. Her thoughts and hopes were all engrossed, given to the one absorbing subject, and this forced attention to foreign matters was very irksome.
"If Maurice come back," she said to herself, "he will manage everything for me. If not"—and at the bare supposition all her life and energy seemed to pass, leaving her cold and spiritless—"if not, what does anything matter?"
She turned to the table. Mr. Robinson, it should be observed, had pocketed the papers. He had not thought it well, probably, that the ladies should examine them without the commentary of his instructive explanations. Mr. Robinson professed to think little of the female intellect, probably because, as a general rule, he found ladies gullible.
Not finding the papers, Margaret arose and walked to the window.
"Adèle, my dear," she said after a few moments' pause, "I must sign this." In her voice were the querulous tones of weakness. "That man's explanations will send me wild. Can you give me any solid reason for objecting?"
"Only, that he has no right, in the present state of affairs, to ask you to sign anything. It all sounds plausible enough, but I think that if the man were really honest he would wait for this 'winding up,' as he calls it, until your husband's return."