"I hardly see that," he replied, with a slight laugh of scorn. "You had an estate and a position to save, to go no farther. I remember very well what you said to me—'A clever lawyer can do anything if he has the will; if it's impossible, he will make it possible. And the property is sure to be Harold's some day.' He was a baby then."
"I remember most things a little too well; you had better say at once what is your object in recalling them."
"An object that is nothing more than justice. With the relation I stood in, it was not likely I should think myself bound by all the forms that are made to bind strangers. I had often immense trouble to raise the money necessary to pay off debts and carry on the affairs; and, as I said before, I had given up other lines of advancement which would have been open to me if I had not stayed in this neighborhood at a critical time when I was fresh to the world. Anybody who knew the whole circumstances would say that my being hunted and run down on the score of my past transactions with regard to the family affairs, is an abominably unjust and unnatural thing."
Jermyn paused a moment, and then added, "At my time of life——and with a family about me——and after what has passed——I should have thought there was nothing you would care more to prevent."
"I do care. It makes me miserable. That is the extent of my power—to feel miserable."
"No, it is not the extent of your power. You could save me if you would. It is not to be supposed that Harold would go on against me—if he knew the whole truth."
Jermyn had sat down before he uttered the last words. He had lowered his voice slightly. He had the air of one who thought that he had prepared the way for an understanding. That a man with so much sharpness, with so much suavity at command—a man who piqued himself on his persuasiveness toward women—should behave just as Jermyn did on this occasion, would be surprising but for the constant experience that temper and selfish insensibility will defeat excellent gifts—will make a sensible person shout when shouting is out of place, and will make a polished man rude when his polish might be of eminent use to him.
As Jermyn, sitting down and leaning forward with an elbow on his knee, uttered his last words—"if he knew the whole truth"—a slight shock seemed to pass through Mrs. Transome's hitherto motionless body, followed by a sudden light in her eyes, as in an animal's about to spring.
"And you expect me to tell him?" she said, not loudly, but yet with a clear metallic ring in her voice.
"Would it not be right for him to know?" said Jermyn, in a more bland and persuasive tone than he had yet used.