"Yes, Kate Mellon! She's got ready-money enough to pay off all my ticks and set me square; and then I could keep square. I'm sure she'd forget all that stupid business of which I told you; though I've never seen her since. I could put that right in a minute; and--"
"I don't think it would do," said Mr. Simnel earnestly--"I don't think it would do. Miss Mellon's status in society would be fatal to all your hopes of advancement. Your aunt Lady Lowndes and the bishop would cut you dead; and remember," added he, after a pause, and with an attempt at a smile, very ghastly and gummy and forced, "I am interested in this matter to the extent of eight hundred pounds, and I don't think it would do. I'm disposed to recommend you to hold to the other, which appears to me to want only a little patience, and--if I understand from you the security of your position--an undoubted declaration to bring to a favourable issue."
"And what would you advise?"
"A letter. I will draft you what I should suggest; and if you approve, you can copy it, or embody it in any thing else you have to say to Mrs. Schröder;" and Mr. Simnel sat down at once at his desk and began to write. Mr. Beresford sat watching him the while. Not a change in Simnel's face, not an inflexion of his voice, had escaped him; and he wondered what it all meant, and in what Kate Mellon's fortunes could have influence over the impassible secretary of the Tin-Tax Office.
Two days after this interview, Mr. Beresford called in Saxe-Coburg Square and sent up his card, requesting an interview with Mrs. Schröder. The usual message of excuse being returned to him, he gave the servant a letter which he had brought with him, and begged that the man would take it to his mistress; he would await the answer. Mrs. Schröder, seated in her boudoir, read the note, seemed greatly disturbed, told the man that she would send an answer downstairs by her maid, and immediately rushed off to the adjacent bedroom, where Barbara Churchill was lamenting all that had happened, and wondering what was to be the end of her life.
"O Barbara, Barbara darling, what shall I do?" exclaimed the poor little woman; "here is Mr. Beresford come again, and he wanted to see me, and I said no, as we had determined, and then he sent me up this dreadful letter! Oh, what shall I say to him, dear? oh, do help me, there's a darling."
Barbara took the letter from Alice's shaking hand and read it. It was not a pleasing composition; it began in an injured tone, and then grew mysterious, and then almost threatening. The writer demanded an interview, and justified his demand by referring to certain bygone circumstances which the reader would readily remember; and the whole tone was sentimentally prurient and offensive and objectionable in the highest degree. Poor little Alice had not seen any thing of this kind in it; she had merely found it "horrid" and "impertinent;" but Barbara's cheek flamed as she perused it, and the tone of her voice was rather sharp as she said, "Is the man still here, Alice?"
"What man, dear? Mr. Beresford?"
"Of course!--is there any other? Oh, he is here. Very well, then, leave me this letter, and I will go down and speak to him about it."
"You'll see him, Barbara?"