“I don’t know what pleasure you can find in making a fool of a decent little chap like that,” he said; “it’s too bad of you, Blanche.”
“One must amuse oneself, and he is so odd and so very much in earnest.”
“Of course,” Wolfenden continued, “I know that you had another object.”
“Had I?”
“You came here to try and tempt the poor little fellow with a thousand pounds!”
“I have never,” she interposed calmly, “possessed a thousand shillings in my life.”
“Not on your own account, of course: you came on behalf of your employer, Mr. Sabin, or some one behind him! What is this devilry, Blanche?”
She looked at him out of wide-open eyes, but she made no answer.
“So far as I can see,” he remarked, “I must confess that foolery seems a better term. I cannot imagine anything in my father’s work worth the concoction of any elaborate scheme to steal. But never mind that; there is a scheme, and you are in it. Now I will make a proposition to you. It is a matter of money, I suppose; will you name your terms to come over to my side?”