“I would advise you to moderate your tone or your language,” said she. “If my sort of bastard cousin should by any chance happen to hear you referring to him in those terms, he would not be pleased.”
“I want to see him,” said he.
“I would advise you not to see him,” she returned.
“I want to see him,” he insisted.
“If you really wish to see him, I’ll send for him,” she consented. “But it’s only right to warn you that he’s not at all a patient sort of man. If I send for him, he will quite certainly make things disagreeable for you.”
“I’m not afraid of him. You know well enough that I’m not a coward.”
“My cousin is more than a head taller than you are,” she mused. “He would be perfectly able and perfectly sure to kick you. If there’s any other possible way of getting rid of you, I’d rather not trouble him.”
“I think I had better have a talk with your cousin, as well as with the parson,” he considered.
“I think you had better confine your attentions to the parson. I do, upon my word,” she counselled him.
“I am going to make a concession,” said Aymer. “I’m going to give you a night in which to think this thing over. If you care to send me a note, with a cheque in it, so that I shall receive it at the inn by to-morrow at ten o’clock, I’ll take the next earliest train back to town, and I’ll send you a picture in return. If no note comes by ten o’clock, I’ll call on the parson, and tell him all I know about you; and I’ll write a letter to your cousin. Now, good day.”