Maunders' face grew black. "I wish the old lady would keep her ideas to herself," he said angrily, "for it is an idea and nothing more. Naturally, as her father came by his death in so terrible a manner, Ida is grieved and can't think eternally of me. All the same, she loves me."
"I doubt that."
"On what grounds?"
"On what Mrs. Bedge said."
"Pooh! Pooh! Pooh! What does my aunt know about it?" said Maunders lightly and with superb insolence. "She's a dear old thing, but several centuries behind the age. Ida is mine if I choose to have her, and I would have her if my silly heart did not stand in the way."
Vernon jumped up in a royal rage. "I forbid you to make false love to Miss Corsoon. I love her and she loves me, and it is only your infernally magnetic personality that draws her heart away from me. If you meant well by her, and I thought she would be happy, I would withdraw; but you only mean to marry her for her money, which she may never get."
"I love her, I tell you; I love her," said Maunders as violently as Vernon had spoken, "and money or no money I shall marry her if I choose. You have no chance. Lady Corsoon hates you."
"I don't believe it. She shows signs of yielding, and has asked me to go to tea at her house this afternoon. If she hated me she would not ask me in so friendly a way."
An almost imperceptible smile passed over the full lips of Maunders, and he shrugged his shoulders. "Go to her house by all means and hear what she has to say," he sneered. "I'll risk your visit."
Vernon was baffled by all this fencing and evasion. The man would neither say "yea" nor "nay," and it was impossible to tell what he intended to do. "If you will leave the field clear for me with Miss Corsoon I will take you into partnership," he said at last, entreatingly.