"I think you're a horrid——" said Elsie, and was checked by Tinker's upraised hand.
"And when I died," Lady Beauleigh went on, turning again to Tinker, "I should leave you thirty thousand a year—think of it—thirty thousand a year!"
"It all sounds very nice," said Tinker in a painfully indifferent tone. "But I'm afraid it wouldn't do."
"Wouldn't do? Why wouldn't it do? To live in a beautiful big house in the country, and have everything a boy could want! Why wouldn't it do?" cried Lady Beauleigh, excited by opposition to a feverish desire to compass the end on which her heart had been set for many months.
"Do you really want to know," said Tinker very gently, but with a dangerous gleam in his eyes.
"Yes; I insist on knowing!" cried Lady Beauleigh.
"Well," said Tinker slowly, pronouncing every word with a very deliberate distinctness, "we shouldn't get on, you and I. I don't know how it is; but I never get on with people who keep shops or banks. I'm afraid you're not quite—well-bred."
Stout Lady Beauleigh sprang to her feet.
"Ah, well," said Tinker quietly, "you treated my father and mother very cruelly, you've just said rude things about both of them, and you've been rude to Elsie. The fact is, I don't see that I want a step-grandmother at all; and I can't be expected to want an ill-bred one anyway. So—so—I disown you."
Lady Beauleigh's face quivered with rage; she gathered herself together as if to box Tinker's ears; thought better of it, and hurried away.