“It is my pleasure and my duty both.”
“What a rare piece of fortune it was for her, that made you her guardian.”
“Only one of them, remember, and that I am now acting, per force, without my colleague. I own, Mr. M’Kinlay, I am red tapist enough not to like all this usurped authority, but you have tied me up to secresy.”
“Not I, Sir Within. It was Sir Gervais who insisted on this.”
“I respect his wishes, for perhaps I appreciate their necessity. You see some sort of objection to my plan, Mr. M’Kinlay?” said the old diplomatist, with a cunning twinkle of the eye. “What is it?”
“None, Sir, none whatever,” said the lawyer, rapidly.
“Yes, yes, you do; be candid, my dear Mr. M’Kinlay. What we say to each other here will never figure in a Blue-book.”
“I did not see a positive objection, Sir Within; I only saw what might be an embarrassment.”
“In what shape?”
“I am completely in your hands, Sir Within Wardle; but such is my confidence in you, I will not withhold anything. Here is the difficulty I speak of: Miss Courtenay, who never favoured the project about this girl, likes it now less than ever, and I do not feel quite certain that she will be satisfied with any arrangement short of sending her back to the obscurity she came from.”