“Which I refuse, sir, at once,” interrupted Sir Brook. “I opine, then, there is no more to be said,” said Sewell, with a faint smile.
“Nothing more, sir,—not a word; unless perhaps you will be gracious enough to explain to the Chief Baron the reasons—they cannot be unknown to you—why I refuse all and any communication with Colonel Sewell.”
“I have no presumption to read your mind and know your thoughts,” said Sewell, with quiet politeness.
“You would discover nothing in either to your advantage, sir,” said Fossbrooke, defiantly.
“Might I add, sir,” said Sewell, with an easy smile, “that all your malevolence cannot exceed my indifference to it?”
Fossbrooke waived his hand haughtily, as though to dismiss the subject and all discussion of it, and after a few seconds' pause said: “We have a score that must be settled one day. I have deferred the reckoning out of reverence to the memory of one whose name must not be uttered between us, but the day for it shall come. Meanwhile, sir, you shall pay me interest on your debt.”
“What do you assume me to owe you?” asked Sewell, whose agitation could no longer be masked.
“You would laugh if I said, your character before the world and the repute through which men keep your company; but you will not laugh—no, sir, not even smile—when I say that you owe me the liberty by which you are at large, instead of being, as I could prove you, a forger and a felon.”
Sewell threw a hurried and terrified look around the room, as though there might possibly be some to overhear the words; he grasped the back of a chair to steady himself, and in the convulsive effort seemed as if he was about to commit some act of violence.
“None of that, sir,” said Fossbrooke, folding his arms.