“Sir, such insinuations are most uncalled for; I must beg of you to withdraw them. I must ask you to remember you are talking to one at least in the same position as yourself, to a man of seven thousand a year!”
“Pooh, pooh! seven thousand a year—you are making that to-day, to-morrow you mayn't be making three. Yours isn't invested money.”
Berkins had risen from the great leather armchair, and he stood expressionless as a piece of office furniture, his grave face divided by the green shade of the billiard lamp; Mr. Brookes remained with his back—his straight fat back bound in a new frock coat that defined the senile fatness of the haunches—turned to his guest. He stooped as if to examine his favourite Linnell, but, in his passion, he did not see it. The table, covered with a grey cloth, lay like an account spread out between the moneyed men.
“Taking your words into due consideration, I think I had better wish you good-morning, Mr. Brookes.”
“Mr. Berkins, I would not wish you to misunderstand me,” said Mr. Brookes, whom the prospect of losing seven thousand a year had suddenly cooled. “My daughter will have—my children, I should say—will have my fortune divided amongst them at my death, and when we come to go into figures you will find—”
“But in the meantime, what do you propose to settle on her?”
Mr. Brookes hesitated. He was angry at being pressed. Berkins's domineering tone irritated him; he would have liked to bundle him from the house.
Presently he said: “I think, considering the very large sums of money my daughters will come into at my death, that a settlement of two hundred a year is ample.”
“Very well, in that case I shall settle the same.”
“I could not, I will not, consent to any such arrangement. The man my daughter marries must settle on her a sum of money equivalent—”