"'I?' says Dad, still playing the game—'nothing. I am not the injured party. It is for my poor girl to say.'
"The Earl looked at me. I took a big breath, and said, 'A hundred thousand pounds.'
"'You value your heart at rather a high figure, madam,' says he. (Do you remember, those were the very words you used to me, Jack?) Then he swings round to Dad, and says,—
"'Of course this is preposterous. I am willing to pay you five thousand pounds, to extricate my son from the trap, the carefully baited trap'—he looked all round the room, and I knew he knew everything in it had been got on the nod—'into which he has fallen. That is more than you would get out of the most impressionable jury, and I advise you to take it, Mr.—er—Lottingar.'
"'Quite true, my lord,' says Dad. 'But you know you'd give more than a hundred thousand to keep the family name out of the courts. You don't want the papers to get hold of it. "A Cabinet Minister's son sued for Breach-of-Promise"—you know the sort of stuff—and Lottie's portrait in "The Sketch."'
"'I am afraid we are wasting time, Mr. Lottingar,' says his lordship. 'If your daughter will sign a document, which I will draw up for her, renouncing all claims to my son, and undertaking not to molest him for the future, I will give her a cheque for five thousand pounds. If not, I must bid you good-afternoon.'
"'A hundred thousand!' says Dad.
"'I think you are acting foolishly,' says the old man, getting up. 'If you refuse my offer I shall go up to town now, and call on my solicitor to-morrow morning; and I think it highly probable, from what I see of your surroundings here, and from what I know of your antecedents already, that I shall be able to make it exceedingly risky for you to face the publicity of the law courts in any capacity whatsoever. In fact, I should not be surprised if you had to leave the country.'
"My word, Jack, he was fine! He dropped each word out of his mouth like a little lump of ice. But old Dad stood up to him. He simply chuckled.
"'No, no, my lord, it won't do,' he said. 'I have laid my plans farther ahead than you think. Now, look here. If you don't sign that little cheque I'm asking for, Lottie here will walk straight out of this house, take her motor, pick up your son, who is waiting for her at the roadside this minute, and drive straight to Lindley, where they will be married by special licence this very afternoon. Your son has got that licence in his pocket now. And when the two are firmly tied up, you'll realise two things, my lord,—first, that it's hardly the thing to rake up the past life of your daughter-in-law's father; and secondly, that a wife is a deal more expensive to buy off than a fiancée.'