‘I am much obliged to them, certainly. I have been in the habit of thinking differently.’
‘Of course, of course,’ he rejoined, laughing. ‘But there may have been some—mistake somewhere. I know Sir Giles would give five times its value for it.’
‘He should not have it if he offered the Moldwarp estate in exchange,’ I cried indignantly; and the thought flashed across me that this temptation was what my uncle had feared from the acquaintance of Mr Coningham.
‘Your sincerity will not be put to so great a test as that,’ he returned, laughing quite merrily. ‘But I am glad you have such a respect for real property. At the same time—how many acres are there of it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I answered, curtly and truly.
‘It is of no consequence. Only if you don’t want to be tempted, don’t let Sir Giles or my father broach the subject. You needn’t look at me. I am not Sir Giles’s agent. Neither do my father and I run in double harness. He hinted, however, this very day, that he believed the old fool wouldn’t stick at £500 an acre for this bit of grass—if he couldn’t get it for less.’
‘If that is what you have come about, Mr Coningham,’ I rejoined, haughtily I dare say, for something I could not well define made me feel as if the dignity of a thousand ancestors were perilled in my own,’ I beg you will not say another word on the subject, for sell this land I will not.’
He was looking at me strangely. His eye glittered with what, under other circumstances, I might have taken for satisfaction; but he turned his face away and rose, saying with a curiously altered tone, as he took up his hat,
‘I’m very sorry to have offended you, Mr Cumbermede. I sincerely beg your pardon. I thought our old—friendship may I not call it?—would have justified me in merely reporting what I had heard. I see now that I was wrong. I ought to have shown more regard for your feelings at this trying time. But again I assure you I was only reporting, and had not the slightest intention of making myself a go-between in the matter. One word more: I have no doubt I could let the field for you—at good grazing rental. That I think you can hardly object to.’
‘I should be much obliged to you,’ I replied—‘for a term of not more than seven years—but without the house, and with the stipulation expressly made that I have right of way in every direction through it.’