"I'll answer you," he said. "I was christened Raoul Delamere, but they call me Lord Clydesdale now; and I hope to marry Mr. Vavasour's only daughter. I am here—because I am infidel enough to enjoy seeing a Jew taken on the hip. I wouldn't have missed this—to clear off the biggest of your mortgages. So you fancied you were going to reign at Dene? Not if you had had another hundred thousand at your back. If we only have warning, the old blood can hold its own, and beat the best of you yet. Mr. Faulkner, don't you think you had better pay him, and let him go?"
The change of tone in those last words, from brutal disdain to studied courtesy, was the very climax of insult. It was an unworthy triumph, no doubt, but a very complete one. The Earl remained as much master of the position as ever was Front de Bœuf. The Jew was utterly annihilated. To have come there with the power of life and death in his hand, and now to be treated as an ordinary tradesman presenting a Christmas bill! He staggered back step by step, and sunk into a chair, dropping his head, and groaning heavily. Davidson had recovered himself by this time. The elder lawyer only sat silent, and scandalized, lifting his eyebrows in mute testimony against such unprofessional proceedings.
"We can hardly conclude such important business to-day," Morris said. "My client's excitement is a sufficient excuse. We know your intentions now, Mr. Faulkner, and there is ample time to settle everything. I will call upon you at any time or place you like to name."
So, after a few more words, it was settled.
Ephraim Schmidt went out, like a man in a dream, from the house that he had hoped to call his own; only moaning under his breath, like a vanquished Shylock—"Let us go home, let us go home." The chief butler (who had been aware of the state of affairs throughout) dealt him the last blow in the hall, by inquiring with exquisite courtesy, "If he would take any luncheon before he went?" The miserable Hebrew quivered all over, as a victim at the stake might shrink under the last ingenuity of torture. Truly, the meanest of the many debtors who had sued him in vain for mercy, need not have envied the usurer then.
O dark-eyed Miriam, and auburn-haired Deborah! lay aside your golden harps, or other instruments of music that your soul delights in: no song of gladness shall be raised in your tents to-night; it is for the daughters of the uncircumcised to triumph.
When the Squire heard an account of the morning's proceedings, he by no means shared in Clydesdale's satisfaction, and rather failed to appreciate the point of the jest. Hubert's thoroughbred instincts revolted against the idea of even a Jew usurer's having been grossly insulted under his roof, when the man only came to ask for his own; besides this, he understood the feeling that had been at work in the Earl's breast, and despised him accordingly. The difference in social position was too overwhelming to make the match a fair one; but in other respects the antagonists were about on a par. It was just this—a phase of purse-pride vanquished by another and a more potential one. Such a victory brings little honour. The transformed rod of the Lawgiver swallowed up the meaner serpents; but it was only a venomous reptile, after all.
Wyverne felt neither wrath nor despair when the news of Helen's engagement came; he had quite made up his mind that she would marry soon; but he was sad and pensive. He did not change his opinions easily, and he had formed a very strong one about Clydesdale's character: he thought the Earl was as little likely as any man alive to rule a high-spirited mate wisely and well. Nevertheless, Alan indited an epistle that even Lady Mildred could not help admiring: it was guarded, but not in the least formal or constrained; kind and sincerely affectionate, without a tinge of reproach, or a single allusion that could give pain. He saw "my lady" twice, Helen once, before the latter's marriage, and was equally successful with his verbal congratulations. Of course the interviews were not tête-à-têtes: all parties concerned took good care of that. Wyverne and his aunt displayed admirable tact and sangfroid; but the demoiselle cast both into the shade: her manner was far more natural, and her composure less studied. Truly, the training of the Grande Dame progressed rapidly, and the results promised to be fearfully complete.
Alan did intimate an intention of being present at the wedding; but I fear he was scarcely ingenuous there. At all events, urgent private affairs took him abroad two days before the ceremony, no one knew exactly where; and it was three weeks before he appeared on the surface of society again.
Io, Hymenœe! Scatter flowers, or other missile oblations, profusely, you nubile virgins. O choir of appointed youths! Roll out, I beseech you, the Epithalamium roundly: let not the fault be imputed to you, if it sounds like a requiem.