“Influential relations? Who? I should like to know their names.”
“The Seacombes.”
“Stuff! I have cut them.”
Hunsden looked at me incredulously.
“I have,” said I, “and that definitively.”
“You must mean they have cut you, William.”
“As you please. They offered me their patronage on condition of my entering the Church; I declined both the terms and the recompence; I withdrew from my cold uncles, and preferred throwing myself into my elder brother’s arms, from whose affectionate embrace I am now torn by the cruel intermeddling of a stranger—of yourself, in short.”
I could not repress a half-smile as I said this; a similar demi-manifestation of feeling appeared at the same moment on Hunsden’s lips.
“Oh, I see!” said he, looking into my eyes, and it was evident he did see right down into my heart. Having sat a minute or two with his chin resting on his hand, diligently occupied in the continued perusal of my countenance, he went on:
“Seriously, have you then nothing to expect from the Seacombes?”