“No, no, no!” muttered she, in a low but clear tone.
“What do you mean by No, no?” cried he, in a voice of passion.
“I mean that you care a great deal for your own life, and a great deal for your own personal safety; and that if your tyranny to a poor, crushed, weak woman has any bounds, it is from your fear, your abject fear, that in her desperation she might seek a protector, and find him.”
“I told you once before, Madam, men don't like this sort of protectorate. The old bullying days are gone by. Modern decorum 'takes it out' in damages.” She sat still and silent; and after waiting some time, he said, in a calm, unmoved voice, “These little interchanges of courtesy do no good to either of us; they haven't even the poor attraction of novelty; so, as my friend Mr. O'Reardon says, let us 'be practical.' I had hoped that the old gentleman upstairs was going to do the polite thing, and die; but it appears now he has changed his mind about it. This, to say the least of it, is very inconvenient to me. My embarrassments are such that I shall be obliged to leave the country; my only difficulty is, I have no money. Are you attending? Are you listening to me?”
“Yes, I hear you,” said she, in a faint whisper.
“You, I know, cannot help me; neither can my mother. Of course the old Judge is out of the question. As for the fellows at the Club, I am deeply in debt to many of them; and Kincaid only reminds me of his unsettled bill of costs when I ask for a loan. A blank look-out, on the whole; isn't it?”
She muttered something like assent, and he went on. “I have gone through a good many such storms before, but none fully as bad as this; because there are certain things which in a few days must come out—ugly little disclosures—one or two there will be. I inadvertently sold that beech timber to two different fellows, and took the money too.”
She lifted up her face, and stared at him without speaking.
“Fact, I assure you! I have a confoundedly bad memory; it has got me into scores of scrapes all through life. Then, this very evening, thinking that the Chief could n't rub through, I made a stupid wager with Balfour that the seat on the Bench would be vacant within a week; and finished my bad run of luck by losing—I can't say how much, but very heavily, indeed—at the Club.”
A low faint sigh escaped her, but not a word.