‘For yourself?’ repeated my lady. ‘Then there are others concerned, I see. Who are they?’
I was about to answer, when she made towards the bell with a dart that stopped me, and said, ‘Why, where is Adelina?’
‘Forbear! be calm, my lady. I married her this morning to Mr. Granville Wharton.’
She set her lips, looked more intently at me than ever, raised her right hand, and smote me hard upon the cheek.
‘Give me back those papers! give me back those papers!’ She tore them out of my hands, and tossed them on her table. Then seating herself defiantly in her great chair, and folding her arms, she stabbed me to the heart with the unlooked-for reproach, ‘You worldly wretch!’
‘Worldly?’ I cried. ‘Worldly?’
‘This, if you please,’—she went on with supreme scorn, pointing me out as if there were some one there to see,—‘this, if you please, is the disinterested scholar, with not a design beyond his books! This, if you please, is the simple creature whom any one could overreach in a bargain! This, if you please, is Mr. Silverman! Not of this world; not he! He has too much simplicity for this world’s cunning. He has too much singleness of purpose to be a match for this world’s double-dealing. What did he give you for it?’
‘For what? And who?’
‘How much,’ she asked, bending forward in her great chair, and insultingly tapping the fingers of her right hand on the palm of her left,—‘how much does Mr. Granville Wharton pay you for getting him Adelina’s money? What is the amount of your percentage upon Adelina’s fortune? What were the terms of the agreement that you proposed to this boy when you, the Rev. George Silverman, licensed to marry, engaged to put him in possession of this girl? You made good terms for yourself, whatever they were. He would stand a poor chance against your keenness.’
Bewildered, horrified, stunned by this cruel perversion, I could not speak. But I trust that I looked innocent, being so.