“You, Adam!”
Her tone expressed an extraordinary conflict of varying sentiment—amusement, affection, reproach, a retrospective distrust of what might have been, but could not be, considering Sir Adam’s age.
“Never mind me, then,” he answered. “I’ve made a will cutting Brook off with nothing if he marries Mrs. Crosby, and I’m going to send her a copy of it to-day. That will be enough, I fancy.”
“Adam!”
“Yes—what? Do you disapprove? You always say that you are a practical woman, and you generally show that you are. Why shouldn’t I take the practical method of stopping this woman as soon as possible? She wants my money—she doesn’t want my son. A fortune with any other name would smell as sweet.”
“Yes—but—”
“I don’t know—it seems—somehow—” Lady Johnstone was perplexed to express what she meant just then. “I mean,” she added suddenly, “it’s treating the woman like a mere adventuress, you know—”
“That’s precisely what Mrs. Crosby is, my dear,” answered Sir Adam calmly. “The fact that she comes of decent people doesn’t alter the case in the least. Nor the fact that she has one rich husband, and wishes to get another instead. I say that her husband is rich, but I’m very sure he has ruined himself in the last two years, and that she knows it. She is not the woman to leave him as long as he has money, for he lets her do anything she pleases, and pays her well to leave him alone. But he has got into trouble—and rats leave a sinking ship, you know. You may say that I’m cynical, my dear, but I think you’ll find that I’m telling you the facts as they are.”
“It seems an awful insult to the woman to send her a copy of your will,” said Lady Johnstone.