"For the very reason that you are Nemo," she retorted with a lightning glance. "My dear boy, Mr. Maunders thought to do you a bad turn by telling me of your secret business, and thought that I would certainly forbid you my house and finally end your dangling after my daughter. As it is, he has done you a good turn, as you are the man I want."
"For Lucy?"
"And for myself. If you can carry out safely the business I have come to see you about I shall encourage your addresses to Lucy, and, so far as I can influence so iron-natured a man, I shall win Sir Julius to your side. Come, is it a bargain?"
"Oh," Vernon caught her hand joyfully, "of course it is; I never dreamed of such happiness. But now I know why Maunders smiled when I told him that I was due at your house this afternoon."
"When did you see him?"
"Immediately before I came here. I went to ask whether he wished to marry Miss Corsoon or Miss Dimsdale, but he refused to say. But he smiled--ah! he thought that, having told you I was Nemo, you intended to dismiss me for ever from your house when I called this afternoon."
"I daresay, but he will learn that instead of enemies we are friends, and that instead of his marrying Lucy, you shall. It is just as well," added Lady Corsoon quietly, "as she loves you, although she is more or less fascinated by that--that--that gentleman, shall we say?"
"But you are fascinated yourself, Lady Corsoon, else you would scarcely have tolerated a penniless man dangling after your daughter."
"I tolerated it, as you say, because Mr. Maunders knows my secret."
"Your secret?" In a flash Vernon recalled the conversation with the young man under the peristyle, in which Maunders had hinted that he knew something which would enable him to manage Lady Corsoon.