“You are too good, my dear Marquis, to think to much of me at a time when your heart is so severely lacerated on account of your daughter,” said Laura, likewise speaking in a whisper.
“There is nothing that I would not do for you, beloved Laura,” responded the infatuated old noble. “You hold already a cheque for sixty thousand pounds: that is nothing to what I will do for you, my dearest angel. And if I allude to pecuniary affairs at all, it is to convince you how anxious I am to ensure your happiness, not only now—but likewise when I shall be no more.”
Thus speaking, the Marquis of Delmour pressed Laura’s hand fervently, and was about to hurry away, when, suddenly recollecting something, he drew her still farther aside, and said in a very low whisper, “Have nothing to do with that woman dearest! I dislike her looks—I mistrust her altogether. She is evidently an adventuress. Oh! how could I have ever supposed even for an instant that such a wretch was the mother of such an angelic being as my Laura?”
Another fond and impassioned look—another pressure of the hand—and the Marquis was gone.
Of all this latter dialogue which took place between that nobleman and Laura, and which was carried on in a very low tone, Mrs. Mortimer, who strained all her auricular faculties to catch even a syllable, succeeded only in overhearing a very short sentence. But that one sentence she did manage to catch; and a highly significant as well as deeply important one was it for her.
And these were the words which she thus caught—“You hold already a cheque for sixty thousand pounds!”
Quickly as the first glass of sparkling wine infuses a delicious sensation throughout the entire frame,—so speedily did that one sentence create a burning joy in the breast of the old woman. She saw through it all:—Laura had wheedled the Marquis out of that immense sum—and now she intended to jilt him, and espouse the Italian noble!
“A cheque for sixty thousand pounds!” thought Mrs. Mortimer within herself, while the Marquis and Laura were still whispering together: “sixty thousand pounds! Well—we shall see! It is better than a paltry six hundred.”
And, while thus musing, she affected to be smelling the flowers on the mantel-piece, until the door suddenly opened and closed again instantaneously—and then she turned round towards Laura, for the Marquis was gone.
“And you assured me that you knew nothing of the nobleman who has just left us?” said Laura, fixing her eyes with cold contempt on her mother.