“Why?”
Sir Timothy did not at once reply. He seemed to be enjoying his sandwich; he also appreciated the flavour of his wine.
“Your question,” he said, “strikes me as being a little ingenuous. You are at the present moment suspecting me of crimes beyond number. You encourage Scotland Yard detectives to make asses of themselves in my stream. Your myrmidons scramble on to the top of my walls and try to bribe my servants to disclose the mysteries of my household. You have accepted to the fullest extent my volunteered statement that I am a patron of crime. You are, in short—forgive me if I help myself to a little more of this pâté—engaged in a strenuous attempt to bring me to justice.”
“None of these things affects your daughter,” Francis pointed out.
“Pardon me,” Sir Timothy objected. “You are a great and shining light of the English law. People speak of you as a future Chancellor. How can you contemplate an alliance with the widow of one criminal and the daughter of another?”
“As to Margaret being Oliver Hilditch's widow,” Francis replied, “you were responsible for that, and no one else. He was your protegé; you gave your consent to the marriage. As to your being her father, that again is not Margaret's fault. I should marry her if Oliver Hilditch had been three times the villain he was, and if you were the Devil himself.”
“I am getting quite to like you, Mr. Ledsam,” Sir Timothy declared, helping himself to another piece of toast and commencing to butter it. “Margaret, what have you to say about all this?”
“I have nothing to say,” she answered. “Francis is speaking for me. I never dreamed that after what I have gone through I should be able to care for any one again in this world. I do care, and I am very happy about it. All last night I lay awake, making up my mind to run away, and this morning I actually booked my passage to Buenos Ayres. Then we met—just outside the steamship office—and I knew at once that I was making a mistake. I shall marry Francis exactly when he wants me to.”
Sir Timothy passed his glass towards his proposed son-in-law.
“Might one suggest,” he began—“thank you very much. This is of course very upsetting to me. I seem to be set completely at defiance. It is a very excellent wine, this, and a wonderful vintage.”