‘I arose, indeed, and declared that the mere mention of such terms was like a refusal to treat at all.’
‘And you retired?’
‘I gained the door, when he detained me. He has, I must admit, a marvellous plausibility, for though at first he seemed to rely on the all-importance of these documents to your lordship—how far they would compromise you in the past and impede you for the future, how they would impair your influence, and excite the animosity of many who were freely canvassed and discussed in them—yet he abandoned all that at the end of our interview, and restricted himself to the plea that the sum, if a large one, could not be a serious difficulty to a great English noble, and would be the crowning fortune of a poor Greek gentleman, who merely desired to secure a marriage-portion for his only daughter.’
‘And you believed this?’
‘I so far believed him that I have his pledge in writing that, when he has your lordship’s assurance that you will comply with his terms—and he only asks that much—he will deposit the papers in the hands of the Minister at Athens, and constitute your lordship the trustee of the amount in favour of his daughter, the sum only to be paid on her marriage.’
‘How can it possibly concern me that he has a daughter, or why should I accept such a trust?’
‘The proposition had no other meaning than to guarantee the good faith on which his demand is made.’
‘I don’t believe in the daughter.’
‘That is, that there is one?’
‘No. I am persuaded that she has no existence. It is some question of a mistress or a dependant; and if so, the sentimentality, which would seem to have appealed so forcibly to you, fails at once.’