“So much the better; your simplicity will be more inscrutable than your subtlety, Haire. I can deal with the one—the other masters me.”
“I declare frankly I don't like the mission. I was never, so to say, a favorite with her Ladyship.”
“Neither was I, sir,” said the other, with a peremptory loudness that was almost startling.
“Hadn't you better intimate it by a few lines in a note? Had n't you better say that, having seen your son during his late visit to town, and learnt his intention to accept a colonial appointment—”
“All this would be apologetic, sir, and must not be thought of. Don't you know, Haire, that every unnecessary affidavit is a flaw in a man's case? Go and see her; your very awkwardness will imply a secret, and she 'll be so well pleased with her acuteness in discovering the mystery, she 'll half forget its offence.”
“Let me clearly understand what I' ve got to do. I 'm to tell her or to let her find out that you have been reconciled to your son Tom?”
“There is not a word of reconciliation, sir, in all your instructions. You are to limit yourself to the statement that touches my granddaughter.”
“Very well; it will be so much the easier. I'm to say, then, that you have adopted her, and placed her at the head of your house; that she is to live here in all respects as its mistress?”
He paused; and as the Judge bowed a concurrence, he went on: “Of course you will allow me to add that I was never consulted; that you did not ask my opinion, and that I never gave one?”
“You are at liberty to, say all this.”