"A hypocrite!" he cried. "Sylvia, this is too much! What have I said or done to make you think me that?"
"Oh, I am not so simple as you suppose, Horace," she replied. "I see now why all this has happened: why poor dad was tormented; why you insisted on my setting you free. But I would have released you without that! Indeed, all this elaborate artifice wasn't in the least necessary!"
"You believe I was an accomplice in that old fool's plot?" he said. "You believe me such a cur as that?"
"I don't blame you," she said. "I don't believe you could help yourself. He can make you do whatever he chooses. And then, you are so rich now, it is natural that you should want to marry some one—some one more suited to you—like this lovely Princess of yours."
"Of mine!" groaned the exasperated Horace. "When I tell you I've never even seen her! As if any Princess in the world would marry me to please a Jinnee out of a brass bottle! And if she did, Sylvia, you can't believe that any Princess would make me forget you!"
"It depends so very much on the Princess," was all Sylvia could be induced to say.
"Well," said Horace, "if that's all the faith you have in me, I suppose it's useless to say any more. Good-bye, Mrs. Futvoye; good-bye, Professor. I wish I could tell you how deeply I regret all the trouble I have brought on you by my own folly. All I can say is, that I will bear anything in future rather than expose you or any of you to the smallest risk."
"I trust, indeed," said the Professor, stiffly, "that you will use all the influence at your command to secure me from any repetition of an experience that might well have unmanned a less equable temperament than my own."
"Good-bye, Horace," said Mrs. Futvoye, more kindly. "I believe you are more to be pitied than blamed, whatever others may think. And I don't forget—if Anthony does—that, but for you, he might, instead of sitting there comfortably in his armchair, be lashing out with his hind legs and kicking everything to pieces at this very moment!"
"I deny that I lashed out!" said the Professor. "My—a—hind quarters may have been under imperfect control—but I never lost my reasoning powers or my good humour for a single instant. I can say that truthfully."