"Brussels, Nov. 1, 18—.
"Dear Mrs. Dobbs
"I think it would be very desirable for Miranda to be presented by her aunt, if she is to be presented at all, and to be brought out properly. I have no doubt that my sister will introduce her in the best possible way. Since you seem to press for my consent, you have it herewith, although I hardly feel that I can have much voice in the matter, being separated, as I have been for years, from my country, my family, and my only surviving child. I am a mere exile. It is not a brilliant existence for a man born and brought up as I have been. However, I must make the best of it.
"Yours always,
"A. C."
This was sufficient for Mrs. Dobbs. She had made a point of obtaining Augustus's authority for his daughter's removal to town; not because she relied on his judgment, but because she knew him well enough to fear some trick, or sudden turn of feigned indignation, if, from any motive of his own, he thought fit to disapprove the step. As to the tone of his reply, that neither troubled nor surprised her. But Mr. Weatherhead was moved to great wrath by it. Mrs. Dobbs had tossed the note to him one day, saying—
"There; there's my son-in-law's consent to May's going to town, in black and white. That's a document."
Mr. Weatherhead eagerly pounced on it. "What a disgusting production!" he exclaimed, looking up over the rim of the double eyeglass which he had set astride his nose to read the note.
"Is it?" returned Mrs. Dobbs carelessly.
"Is it? Why, Sarah, you surprise me, taking it in that cool way. It is the most thankless, unfeeling, selfish production I ever read in my life."
"Oh, is that all? Well, but that's just Augustus Cheffington. We know what he is at this time of day, Jo Weatherhead. It 'ud be a deal stranger if he wrote thankfully, and feelingly, and unselfishly."
But Mr. Weatherhead refused to dismiss the matter thus easily. He belonged to that numerous category of persons who, having established and proclaimed a conviction, appear to be immensely astonished at each confirmation of it. He had years ago pronounced Augustus Cheffington to be a heartless scoundrel. Nevertheless he was shocked and amazed whenever Augustus Cheffington did anything to corroborate that opinion.
The letter from Mrs. Dormer-Smith was not shown to him. Mrs. Dobbs meant to keep the amount she was to pay for May a secret even from her faithful and trusted friend Jo. He might guess what he pleased, but she would not tell him. The means, too, by which she meant to raise the money would not, she knew, meet with his approval. And, since she had resolved to use those means, she thought it best to avoid vain discussion beforehand, and therefore said nothing about them.
Accident, however, revealed a part of the secret in this way: