"'I 'm sorry, Mr. Fluette—more than I can express—that you feel towards me as you do. Nobody could be more ignorant than I am concerning the nature of your feud with Felix Page—unless it is that you are visiting upon me the consequences of his opposition to you in the Board of Trade.'
"He spurned this supposition with a scornful gesture. So I continued:
"'I am glad to know it is not that; I could n't conceive of you doing anything so outrageously unjust. Could anything be more unfair,' I asked him, 'than to make me share all the animosities that Felix Page has engendered? Why, he is scarcely better than a stranger to me; my profound ignorance of his affairs is the best testimony that I can offer in my behalf.'"
He paused a moment and tried to drive the distressed look from Miss Belle's face with a cheering smile. He failed to do so, however, and immediately proceeded with his recital.
"Well, I failed utterly to move him; but you will be more than merely interested in what presently followed. Said he:
"'Admitting all that you say, you have brought forward nothing that is to the point; the one over-shadowing, unalterable fact remains that you are Felix Page's nephew. Prove the contrary to be true—satisfy me that you are free of that detestable blood taint—and you remove the last of my objections to you as a son-in-law.'
"He fell to pacing the floor again, and then presently he stopped and eyed me with a curious expression; I knew that he was turning something over in his mind. When he spoke, his words surprised and puzzled me not a little.
"'If you are so bent upon having Belle,' he said, there 's just one way you may go about getting her.'
"Considering what he had already said, it is no wonder that I did n't know what to say to this. I waited, and his next words betrayed the real cause—at least, I took it to be the real cause—of his bitterness and ill will. There was a sneer in every word.
"'Bring me the Paternoster ruby,' he said, 'and if, in the meantime, she has n't acquired some of the intelligence with which I have always credited her, why, you may take Belle.'