“Of course I see that you seem to have had me always for choice as the victim of your malpractices.”
“And you cannot yet see why, my lord?” asked Goodhare, with a panting ferocity which he scarcely now took the trouble to veil.
“No. Except that you are a d——d ungrateful beast, biting by preference the hand that fed you.”
“Could your lordship give me a list of your benefactions to me?” asked Goodhare, glaring across at him over the smoke and flame of the fire.
“Well I gave you the post of librarian at Llancader, until I found you taking advantage of the position to rob me of MSS., which, as I see, you knew how to use.”
“And did I not earn my pay? Was I idle, drunken, dissolute?”
“Certainly not. You were an ideal librarian, and I respected you for it.”
“Respected me for repressing every instinct of my nature, every passion which you were freely indulging! I should think so.”
“Our positions were not the same: I could not alter that fact.”
“Did you do all for me that my father—and yours—on his death-bed desired that you should do?”