"That being the case, Mr.---- Mr.--I beg your pardon--Merton, perhaps we had better bring this interview to an end," said the Colonel, rising to his feet. "I am not going to pick words with you as to the expression which you have chosen to apply to the commission which your sister executed for me. She executed and was paid for it, and there's an end of it."
"Not yet," said John Merton. "You don't imagine that I should come here, in the present day, when all these things are taken for granted, to endeavour to wring your conscience by proving to you that you tempted a young girl to do a dishonest, disloyal, and dishonourable act? You don't imagine I am quixotic enough to think that even if you listen to me patiently, what I said to you would have one grain of effect a moment after the door had closed upon me? You don't think I am a missionary from the lower classes come to prate to the upper of decency and honour?"
He spoke in a loud high key, his eyes were flashing, and his whole face was lit up with excitement.
"What my sister did for you is done and ended so far as she is concerned, and I will not give you the excuse for a smile by telling you that she is sorry for it now, and sees her conduct in a light in which she did not before perceive it. You do smile, and I know why: you think it is easy to profess repentance when the deed has been done and the reward paid. You paid to my sister at various times sums amounting to thirty pounds. In this envelope," laying one on the table, "are three ten-pound notes. So far, Colonel Orpington, we are quits."
The Colonel sat still, with his eyes intently fixed on his visitor. As he remained silent, John Merton proceeded:
"I wish the other matter could be as easily settled. But in this I meet you on even terms; in the other I come as a suppliant."
The Colonel's face became a little more hard, and he sat a little more erectly in his chair, as he heard these last words.
"Through my sister's aid, directly or indirectly, you made the acquaintance of Miss Stafford. Well," he continued, as he noticed a motion of protest on the Colonel's part, "you may not actually have made her acquaintance--that, I believe, commenced at the place where she was employed--but it was through my sister's aid that you knew of her, that you learned all about her, and that you found out she was likely to swallow the gilded bait by which even now you are endeavouring to secure her. When a man in your position pays attention to a girl in hers, it can be but with one meaning and intention. Whether Miss Stafford knew that or not, during these last few months in which you have been constantly hanging about her, I cannot say: but she knows it now; for you yourself have placed it before her in language impossible to be misunderstood."
"Look here, sir!" cried the Colonel, starting forward.
"Wait and hear me, sir," said John Merton; "you must, you shall! I told you I was prepared to submit to indignity, to endure your sneers and sarcasms. I would not have put myself in the way of them for my sister's sake; but I would for Fanny Stafford."